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A 


STUDY OF 




MKXICO 


- 


BY 


DAVID A. WELLS, LL. D., D. C. L. 




NEW YORK 


D 


. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



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A 



STUDY OF MEXICO 



DAVID A. WELLS, LL. D., D. C. L. 

MEMBRE CORRESPONDANT DE l'iNSTITUT DE FRANCE ; CORRESPONDENTE 

DELLA REALE ACCADEMIA De' LINCEI, ITALIA ; HONORARY MEMBER 

OF THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, ETC. 




REPRINTED, WITH ADDITIONS, 
FROM THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 




NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Copyright, 1886, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



All rights reserved. 




PREFACE. 



This book owes its origin to the following cir- 
cumstances : 

During the early months of the year 1885, the 
author, in pursuit of health and recreation solely, 
availed himself of an opportunity to visit Mexico, 
under peculiarly favorable conditions. 

The journey, it may be further premised, was 
mainly made upon a special train, over the whole 
length of the " Mexican Central Railroad," over 
most of the " Vera Cruz and City of Mexico," and 
over a part of the " Mexican National," Railroads ; 
the aggregate distance traversed within the terri- 
tory of the republic being in excess of three thou- 
sand miles, the train running upon its own time, 
with its own equipment for eating and sleeping, 
and stopping long enough at every point of inter- 
est — city, town, hacienda, mine, or desert — to abun- 
dantly satisfy curiosity, and answer every immedi- 
ate demand for information. 

It is safe, therefore, to say that such faciHties for 
leisurely visiting and studying so much of Mexico 
had rarely, if ever, before been granted. 



4 PREFACE. 

Fully recognizing that one can know but very 
little of a countr\', who, ignorant of the language, 
the customs, the political and social condition and 
pursuits of its people, sees it simply and hurriedly 
as a traveler, the journey in question was, neverthe- 
less, sufficiently instructive to satisfy thoroughly as 
to two points : First, that here was a country, bor- 
dering on the United States for a distance of more 
than two thousand miles, which was almost as for- 
eign to the latter, in respect to race, climate, gov- 
ernment, manners, and laws, as though it belonged 
to another planet; and, secondly, that the people 
of the United States generally knew about as much 
of the domestic affairs of this one of their near- 
est neighbors as they did of those of the empire 
of China. And with a realization of these facts, a 
temptation to enter upon a field of investigation, so 
fresh and so little worked, \vas created, too attract- 
ive to be resisted; and, accordingly, with the sole 
purpose of desiring to know the truth about Mexi- 
C(j, and to form an opinion as to what should be the 
future political and commercial relations between 
that countrv and the United States, the author, on 
the comjilction of his journev, entered upon a care- 
ful study of a large amount of information relative 
t(j Mexico, derived from both public and private 
sources, which he found at his disj)osal. And it is 
on the basis of this study, and with the kindliest 
feeling for and the deepest interest in Mexico, that 
he has written ; using his exjieriences of travel as 
a guide to incjuiry and as a factor in determining 
what it was desirable to know, rather than as may 



PREFACE. 



5 



be inferred or charged as a basis for original asser- 
tions or deductions. 

In so doing, however, he claims nothing of in- 
falHbility. He frankly confesses that in respect to 
some things he may be mistaken ; and that others 
might draw entirely different conclusions from the 
same data.* But for the entire accuracy of most 

* One curious illustration of this point is to be found in the follow- 
ing extract from a letter recently addressed to the Mexican " Financier " 
by a Mexican gentleman, in contravention of the writer's opinions re- 
specting the present industrial condition and prospective development 
of Mexico. He says : " If you pass through the Academy of San Car- 
los, you will see pictures executed by native Mexican artists in the 
highest style of art, comparing most favorably with any production of 
the academies of design of Paris, Rome, Munich, or elsewhere. Go 
with me, if you please, to a narrow lane in the small but picturesque 
city of Cuernavaca, and there in a small room, working with imple- 
ments of his own make, you will observe a native, whom you would 
perhaps class among the peons, carving a crucifix in wood, so highly 
artistic, with the expression of suffering on our Saviour's face so realis- 
tic, that any foreign sculptor of the highest renown would be proud to 
call it a creation of his own. Again, visit with me the village of Amat- 
lan de los Reyes, near Cordoba, and observe the exquisitely embroid- 
ered huipilla of some native woman, surpassing in many i-espects the 
designs of the art-needlework societies of New Yoi-k or Boston ; not to 
mention the fine filigree-work, figures in clay and wax as executed by 
the natives in or near the city of Mexico, the art pottery of Guadala- 
jara, the gourds, calabashes, and wooden trays highly embellished by 
native artists, whose sense or acceptation of art is not acquired by tedi- 
ous study at some academy of design, but is inborn and spontaneously 
expressed in such creations. Only yesterday in my walks about town 
I entered the National Monte de Piedad, where I heard the sweetest 
and most melodious strains from a grand piano of American make, and 
beheld, to my astonishment, that the artist was a native, a cargador, or 
public porter, clad in cheap sombrero, blouse, white cotton trousers, and 
sandals, with his brass plate and rope across his shoulders, ready to 
carry this very instrument on his back to the residence of some better- 



6 PREFACE. 

Statements and deductions he believes he finds am- 
ple warrant in the published diplomatic and consu- 
lar correspondence of the United States during the 
last decade, and in an extensive personal correspond- 
ence with railroad and commercial men, who, from 
continuous residence, have become well acquainted 
with Mexico.* Making every allowance, however, 
for diderences of (Opinion respecting minor details, 

favored brother from a foreign land. If this is not innate genius, I 
know not what else to call it." To this it may be replied that the 
facts as above stated are probably not in the least exaggerated. There 
is undoubtedly in the Mexican people, inherited from their Spanish 
ancestry, much of cesthetic taste and an " innate genius " for music, 
painting, sculpture, embroidery, dress, decoration, and the fine arts 
generally. But this vcr}' fact, in view of the hard, rough work that 
Mexico has got to do to overcome the natural obstacles in the way of 
her material development, is not a maUer of encouragement. Yox it is 
not genius to carve cmcifixes, embroider huipillas, or compose and exe- 
cute music, that her people need ; but rather the ability to make and 
maintain good roads, invent and use machinerj', and reform a system 
of laws that would neutralize all her natural advantages, even though 
they were many times greater than the most patriotic citizen of the 
country could claim for it. 

* From one of these latter the following warning against publishing 
anything in the way of observations or conclusions was received by the 

writer : 

"CiTV OF Mexico, April 13, 1886. 

" The papers are filled with the letters of travelers about Mexico. 
If you do not conform to what many people here want you to say, you 
are put down as having taken a hasty or dyspeptic observation of the 
country, and had no opportunity to know anything. If you pass one 
week in an hotel, and should write conformably to what various inter- 
ests would have you, you are at once quoted as a 'most intelligent and 
experienced traveler.' A thorough investigation scrapes off all the var- 
nish, and will often expose the motives of not a few people in Mexico, 
who would have American capital plant itself there under conditions 
which afford no protection by their Government or ours." 



PREFACE. 7 

the main facts and deductions presented (which can 
not well be questioned or disputed) seem to com- 
prise all that is essential for a fair understanding of 
the physical conformation and history of Mexico ; 
its present political, social, and industrial condition ; 
and also for an intelligent discussion of its future 
possible or desirable political and commercial rela- 
tions to the United States. 

The results of the " Study of Mexico " w^ere origi- 
nally contributed, in the form of a series of papers, 
to " The Popular Science Monthly," and were first 
published in the issues of that journal for April, 
May, June, July, and August, 1886. It Avas not 
anticipated at the outset that any more extensive 
circulation for them, than the columns of the 
" Monthly " afforded, would be demanded ; but 
the interest and discussion they have excited, both 
in the United States and Mexico, have been such ; 
and the desire on the part of the people of the 
former country, growing out of recent political 
complications, to know more about Mexico, has be- 
come so general and manifest, that it has been 
thought expedient to republish and offer them to 
the public in book form — subject to careful revis- 
ion and with extensive additions, especially in rela- 
tion to the condition and wages of labor and the 
industrial resources and productions of Mexico. 

The United States has of late been particularly 
fortunate in its consular representation in Mexico ; 
and the author would especially acknowledge his 
indebtedness for information and statistics to David 
H. Strother (" Porte Crayon "), late consul-general 



8 PREFACE. 

at the city of Mexico ; Warner P. Sutton, consul- 
general at Matamoras ; Consul Willard, of Guay- 
mas ; and others, whose reports during recent 
years to the State Department have done honor 
to themselves and to the Government they repre- 
sented. 

D.wiD A. Wells. 

Norwich, Connecticut, October, iSS6. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Recent popular ignorance concerning Mexico — Reasons therefor 
— Experience of travel by Bayard Taylor in 1850 — Mexico in 
1878, according to the then American minister — Rejoinder of 
the Mexican Government — Present security and facilities for 
Mexican travel — Picturesque aspect of Mexico — Peons, or 
agricultural population — Social condition of the people — 
Mexican architecture and buildings ..... 13 

CHAPTER n. 

Popular fallacies concerning Mexico — Its geographical position 
and physical characteristics — Elevation of the Mexican Cen- 
tral Railroad — The valley of the city of Mexico — The City of 
Mexico and Vera Cruz Railroad — The "Tierras Calientes" — 
No navigable rivers in Mexico— Population — Character of the 
Aztec civilization — A development of the " Stone Age " — The 
romance of Prescott's History — The predecessors of the Az- 
tecs — Counterparts of the mounds of the United States in 
Mexico — Possible explanation of their origin . . . .38 

CHAPTER HI. 

Spanish colonial policy in Mexico — How Spain protected her 
home industries against colonial competition — Origin of the 
War of Independence — Portraits of the Spanish viceroys — 
The last aiito-da-fe in Mexico— Portraits of distinguished 
Mexicans in the National Hall of Embassadors — Ingratitude 
of the republic — The American war of invasion and the spolia- 
tion of Mexico — Injustice of the war 62 



lO CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PACE 

The French invai-jon of Mexico — Benito Juarez — Maximilian and 
his empire — Relation of the Church to the French invasion 
and the empire — Nationalization of the Mexican Church — 
Confiscation of its property — Momentous character and influ- 
ence of this measure — Evidences of the perpetuation of the 
Aztec religion by the Mexican Indians — Foreign (Protestant) 
missions in Mexico ......... 75 

CHAPTER V. 

Divisions of the population of Mexico — The national language 
and its commercial drawbacks — Extreme ignorance and pov- 
erty of the masses — Tortillas and frijoles — Responsibility of 
the Church for the existing condition of the people — Educa- 
tional efforts and awakening in Mexico — Government schools, 
secular and military — Government and social forces of Mexi- 
co — What constitutes public opinion in Mexico? — Character 
of the present Executive — Newspaper press of Mexico . . 92 

CHAPTER VI. 

Occupations of the people of Mexico — Drawbacks to the pursuits 
of agriculture — Land-titles in Mexico — Mining laws — Scant 
agricultural resources of Northern Mexico — Origin and origi- 
nal home of the " cow-boy " — Resources of the Tierras Cali- 
cntes — Agriculture on the plateau of Mexico — Deficiency of 
roads and methods of transportation — Comparative agricultu- 
ral production of the United States and Mexico . . -US 

CHAPTER VII. 

Manufacturing in Mexico — Restricted use of labor-saving ma- 
chinery — Scarcity of fuel and water — Extent of Mexican 
handicrafts — Number of factories using power — Manufacture 
of pottery and leather — Restriction of employments for wom- 
en — The pauper-labor argument as applied to Mexico — Rates 
of wages — Fallacy of abstract statements in respect to wages 
— Scarcity of labor in Mexico^Retail prices of commodities 
— The point of lowest wages in the United States — Analysis 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

PAGE 

of a leading Mexican cotton-factory — Free trade and protec- 
tion not matters of general interest in Mexico — Character- 
istics of the Mexican tariff system — Mines and mining — The 
United States, not Mexico, the great silver-producing coun- 
try — Popular ideas about old Spanish mines without founda- 
tion 133 

CHAPTER VIII. 

'taxation in Mexico — Each State and town its own custom-houses 
— Practical illustrations of the effect of the system — Cost of 
importing a stove from St. Louis — Export taxes — Mexican 
taxation a relic of European mediaevalism — The excise or in- 
ternal tax system of Mexico — A continuation of the old '■^ alca- 
vala " tax of Spain — Eifect of taxation upon general trade — 
The method of remedy most difficult — Parallel experience of 
other countries — Greatest obstacle to tax reform in Mexico . 163 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Federal budget — Receipts and expenditures — Principal 
sources of national revenue — Foreign commerce — Coinage of 
the Mexican mints— Imports and exports — The United States 
the largest customer for Mexican products — Silver monomet- 
allism in Mexico — Its inconveniences and abandonment — 
Introduction of paper money — Sanitary conditions of Mexico 
— Terrible mortality of the cities of Mexico and Vera Cruz . 188 

CHAPTER X. 

Political relations, present and prospective, of the United States 
and Mexico — The border population — Their interests, opin- 
ions, and influence — The bearing of the Monroe doctrine — 
The United States no friends on the American Continent — 
Opinions of other nations in respect to the United States — ■ 
Adverse sentiments in Mexico — Enlightened policy of the 
present Mexican Government — Religious toleration — Recent 
general progress — Claims of Mexico on the kindly sympathies 
of the United Slates — Public debt of Mexico — Interoceanic 
transit and traffic . . 207 



12 COX TENTS. 

CHAPTER XI. 

PACE 

The American railroad system in Mexico — Its influence in promot- 
ing internal order and good government — Remarkable illus- 
tration of the influence of the railroad in developing domestic 
industry — The kerosene-lamp a germ of civilization — Com- 
mercial supremacy of the Germans in Mexico — Mexican credit 
system — Trade advantages on the part of the United States — 
Inaptitude of Americans for cultivating foreign trade — Ameri- 
can products most in demand in Mexico— Weakness of argu- 
ment in opposition to the ratification of a commercial treaty 
— Adverse action of Congress — Reasons offered by the Com- 
mittee of Ways and Means — Interest of the Protestant Church 
of the United States in the treaty — Conclusion . . . 228 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



CHAPTER I. 

Recent popular ignorance concerning Mexico — Reasons therefor — Ex- 
perience of travel by Bayard Taylor in 1850 — Mexico in 1878, 
according to the then American minister — Rejoinder of the Mexi- 
can Government — Present security and facilities for Mexican 
travel — Picturesque aspect of Mexico — Peons, or agricultural pop- 
ulation — Social condition of the people — Mexican architecture 
and buildings. 

Although geographically near, and having 
been in commercial relations with the rest of the 
world for over three hundred and fifty years, there 
is probably less known to-day about Mexico than 
of almost any other country claiming to be civil- 
ized ; certainly not as much as concerning Egypt, 
Palestine, or the leading states of British India ; 
and not any more than concerning the outlying 
provinces of Turkey, the states of Northern Africa, 
or the seaport districts of China and Japan. It is 
doubtful, furthermore, if as large a proportion as 
one in a thousand of the fairly educated men of the 



14 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

United States or of Europe could at once, and 
without reference to an encyclopasdia, locate and 
name the twentv-ninc States or political divisions 
into which the Republic of Mexico is divided, or 
so many of its towns and cities as have a popula- 
tion in excess of fifteen or twenty thousand. 

The explanation of this is, that prior to the con- 
struction and opening of the Mexican "Central" 
and Mexican " National " Railroads, or virtually 
prior to the year 1883, the exploration of Mexico — 
owing to the almost total absence of roads and of 
comfortable liospicia for man and beast, the utter 
insecurity for life and property, the intervention of 
vast sterile and waterless tracts, and the inhospi- 
tality and almost savagery of no small proportion 
of its people — was so difificult and dangerous that 
exploration has rarely been attempted ; and those 
who have attempted it have grcatlv imperiled their 
lives, to sav nothing of their health and property. 

Mexico, furthermore, is not fully kn<3wn even to 
the Mexicans themselves. Thus, a large part of 
the country on the Pacific coast has scarcely been 
penetrated outside of the roads or " trails " which 
lead from the seaports to the interior. There are 
hundreds of scjuare miles in Southern Mexico, es- 
pecially in the States of Michoacan and Guerrero, 
and also in Sonora, that have never been explored, 
and are merely marked on the maps as " terrcno 



FORMER INACCESSIBILITY OF MEXICO. 15 

dcsconocido'' ; and whole tribes of Indians that have 
never been brought in contact w^ith the white man, 
and repel all attempts at visitation or government 
supervision.* 

During the three hundred years, also, when 
Mexico was under Spanish dominion, access to the 
country was almost absolutely denied to foreign- 
ers ; the most noted exception being the case of 
Humboldt, who, through the personal favor and 
friendship of Don Marino Urquijo, first Spanish 
Secretary of State under Charles IV, received 
privileges never before granted to any traveler ; 
and thus it is that, although more than three quar- 
ters of a century have elapsed since Humboldt 

* A Mexican merchant, writing recently from Juguila, State of 
Oaxaca, on the southern Pacific coast of Mexico, says : " Although this 
State has figured in a worthy manner in the New Orleans Exposition, 
it is just to say, because it is the truth, that the greater part of the objects 
which went from the southern coast, destined for New Orleans, wei"e car- 
ried by hand by Indians. . . . It is a pity that a region so extensive and 
so fertile should remain so uncultivated, so unknown, and almost entirely 
inhabited by semi-savage Indians, who, to plant an almud [six and a 
half quarts) of corn, destroy forests of lumber worth more than three 
thousand dollars. The country has scarcely two inhabitants to a square 
kilometre, and these semi-civilized natives, but of a pacific and honest 
nature. The national and neighborhood highways do not merit the 
name. The principal road from Oaxaca to Costa Chica is a bridle-path, 
and in some parts of the district of Villa Alvarez it is so narrow that 
last year, when I, being sick, had to be carried on a bed to Oaxaca, 
the servants who carried me had to abandon it and cross through the 
woods, as two men abreast could not walk in it. If the national roads 
are thus, one can imagine what the neighborhood roads might be. . . ." 
— " United States Consular Reports," 1885. 



1 6 y4 STUDY OF MEXICO. 

inade his journey and explorations, he is still quoted 
as the best and, in many j)articulars, as the only 
reliable authority in respect to Mexico. 

In 1S50, Bayard Taylor, returning from Cali- 
fornia, visited Mexico, landing at Mazatlan, and 
crossing the country by way of the city of Mexico 
to Vera Cruz. His journey lasted from the 5th of 
Jaiuiarv to the 19th of February — a period of about 
six weeks — and the distance traversed by him in a 
straight line could not have been much in excess 
of seven hundred miles — a rather small foundation 
in the way of exploration for the construction of a 
standard work of travel ; yet, whoever reads his 
narrative and enters into sympathv with the au- 
thor (as who in reading Bayard Tavlor does not?) 
is heartily glad that it is no longer. For Mungo 
Park in attempting to explore the Niger, or Bruce 
in seeking for the sources of the Nile, or Living- 
stone (^ the Zambesi, never encountered greater 
perils or chronicled more disagreeable experiences 
of travel. It was not enough to have "journeyed," 
as he expresses it, " for leagues in the burning sun, 
over scorched hills, without water or refreshing 
verdure, suffering greatly from thirst, until I found 
a little muddy water at the bottom of a hole " ; to 
have Hved on frijohs and tortillas (the latter so 
compounded with red pepper that, it is said, nei- 
ther vultures nor wolves will ever touch a dead 



EXPERIENCES OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



17 



Mexican), and to have found an adequate supply 
of even these at times very difficult to obtain ; to 
sleep without shelter or upon the dirt floors of 
adobe huts, or upon scaffolds of poles, and to have 
even such scant luxuries impaired by the invasion 
of hogs, menace of ferocious dogs, and by other 
enemies " without and within," in the shape of 
swarms of fleas, mosquitoes, and other vermin ; 
but, in addition to all this, he was robbed, and left 
bound and helpless in a lonely valley, if not with 
the expectation, at least with a feeling of complete 
indifference, on the part of his ruffianly assailants, 
as to whether he perished by hunger and cold, or 
effected a chance deliverance. And if any one were 
to travel to-day in Mexico, over routes as unfrequent- 
ed as that which Bayard Taylor followed, and under 
the same circumstances of personal exposure, he 
would undoubtedly be subject to a like experience. 
In August, 1878, Hon. John W. Foster, then 
United States minister to Mexico, writing from the 
city of Mexico to the Manufacturers' Association 
of the Northwest, at Chicago, made the following 
statement concerning the social condition of the 
country at that time : " Not a single passenger- 
train leaves this city (Mexico) or Vera Cruz, the 
(then) termini of the only completed railroad in 
the country, without being escorted by a company 
of soldiers to protect it from assault and robbery. 



1 8 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

The manufacturers (jf this city, who own factories 
in the vallcv within sight of it, in sending out 
money to ])av the weekly wages of their opera- 
tives, always accompany it with an armed guard ; 
and it has repeatedly occurred, during the past 
twelve months (1878), that the street rail way -cars 
from this city to the suburban villages have been 
seized by bands of robbers and the money of 
the manufacturers stolen. Every mining company 
which sends its metal to this city to be coined or 
shipped abroad always accompanies it by a strong 
guard of picked men ; and the planters and others 
who send money or valuables out of the city do 
likewise. The principal highways over which the 
diligence lines pass are constantly patroled by the 
armed rural guard or the Federal troops ; and yet 
highway robbery is so common that it is rarely 
even noticed in the newspapers. One of the com- 
mercial indications of the insecurity of communica- 
tion between this capital and the other cities of the 
republic is found in the rate of interior exchange,'' 
which at that time, according to the minister, va- 
ried from ten per cent in the case of Chihuahua, 
distant a thousand miles, to two and two and a 
half per cent for places like Toluca, not farther re- 
moved than sixtv miles.* 

V 

* I he letter of Minister Foster, discussing the commercial relations 

of the two republics, ami from which the above is an extract, gave 



REPORT OF MINISTER FOSTER IN 1878. ig 

Matters are, however, in a much better state at 
present, and for reasons that will be mentioned 
hereafter ; but the following item of Mexican news, 

great offense to the Mexican people ; and, in addition to numerous 
newspaper criticisms, was regarded as of such importance by the Gov- 
ernment, that an extended official reply (325 quarto pages) was made 
to it (in 1880) by the Mexican Secretary of Finance. It was claimed 
therein that, while the report of Minister Foster " contains many exact 
data and estimates worthy of attention, it is unfortunately marred by 
conceptions and deductions which are entirely without foundation," 
and " that it is the duty of the Government of Mexico to vindicate the 
country, clearing away the dark coloring under which the report in 
question presents it." In further illustration of the character and 
strength of this rejoinder on the part of the Mexican Government, the 
following is a summary of the answers to the specific points made by 
Mr. Foster, in that part of his report above quoted : Thus, in regard to 
the statement that passenger-trains on the Vera Cruz Railroad were 
escorted by soldiers, it was said : " The fact is true, but nowise worthy 
of censure ; for, on the contrary, it is the best proof of the care with 
which the Government endeavors to give guarantees to travelers. Even 
in the most civilized countries the police forces watch over the secu- 
rity of the roads, and the way of doing it makes little matter, whether 
it be by escort or stationed forces, for in both cases it indicates a sad 
necessity, to wit, that of sheltering individuals from the attack of evil- 
doers, who exist not only in Mexico, but in every part of the world." 

Again, the fact of excessive rates of exchange between the interior 
cities and towns of Mexico was explained by saying that it is not 
due to the insecurity of the roads, but rather " to the difficulty of com- 
munication, occasioned principally by long distances, bad roads, and 
the lack of conveniences " ; and also by " the circumstance that ex- 
change takes place in one sense only — that is to say, to place in 
Mexico funds that are outside of the capital." 

And the report thus further sharply continues : " For eveiy crime 
against life or property occurring in Mexico, a greater number of simi- 
lar cases that have taken place in the United States could be cited ; 
and this is not strange, for, in proportion as the population of the 
country is larger, it appears that its criminal record must be larger 
also. Moreover, horrible crimes have been committed in the United 



20 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

telegraphed from Saltillo (Northern Mexico), under 
date of February 15, 1885, pretty clearly indicates 
the scope and desirability for future improvement, 
and also the present limitation on the authority of 
the existing national Government : " The commis- 
sion of officers sent from Zacatecas by the Govern- 
ment to treat for a surrender with the noted bandit 
leader, Eraclie Bernal, has returned, having been 
unsuccessful in its mission. The chief demanded 
the following conditions: Pardon for himself and 
band, a bonus of thirty thousand dollars for him- 
self, to be allowed to retain an armed escort of 
twenty-five men, or to be appointed to a position 
in the army commanding a district in Sinaloa." 
How such a statement as the foregoing carries the 
reader back to the davs of the " Robbers of the 
Rhine," or the " free lances " of the middle ages ! 
On the other hand, a recent consular report calls 
attention to the circumstance " that a certain local 
notoriety of the mountain districts, who had ac- 
quired a formidable reputation as an independent 
guerrilla leader in past wars, and as a frank high- 
wayman in the intervals of peace, had made a de- 
scent upon the city (Mexico), unarmed and unat- 
tended, and purchased two plows." 

States, some of which have not even passed through the imagination 
of the wickedest man in Mexico ; such as the robbery of the remains 
of the philanthropic capitalist, A. T. Stewart, in order to get a ransom 
for them." 



PRESENT FACILITIES FOR TRAVEL. 21 

With a better government and increased rail- 
road facilities, the amount of travel in Mexico has 
of late years greatly increased. Before the opening 
of the "Mexican Central," in 1883, the majority of 
travelers entered the country at the port of Vera 
Cruz, and journeyed by railroad (opened in 1873) 
to the capital (two hundred and sixty-three miles), 
and returned without stopping en route in either 
case ; or else made excursions of no great distance 
from points on our southern frontier into the north- 
ern tier of Mexican States — Sonora, Chihuahua, 
Coahuila, and Tamaulipas — such journeys being 
usually made on horseback, with preparations for 
camping out, and also for fighting if it became 
necessary. Since the opening of the " Mexican 
Central," however, this route offers the greatest 
facilities for those who desire to reach the city of 
Mexico, the traveler journeying by a fast train, day 
and night, the whole route (twelve hundred and 
twenty-five miles) from El Paso, in the very best of 
Pullman cars, over a good road, with every accom- 
modation save that of food, which, in spite of the 
efforts of the company, is and will continue to be 
bad, simply because the country furnishes few re- 
sources — milk selling at some points as high as 
twenty-five cents a quart and scarce at that, while 
butter as a product of the country is almost unknown. 
But enter Mexico by whatever route, the ordinary 



22 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

traveler has little opportunity to sec anything of 
the country apart from the city of Mexico, save 
what is afforded by the view from the car-windows, 
and yet it is from just such experiences that most 
of the recent books and letters about Mexico have 
been written. 

There is a wonderful depth of truth in a re- 
mark attributed to Emerson, that "the eye sees 
only what it brings to itself the power to see"; and 
the majority of those who in recent years have vis- 
ited Mexico would seem to have brought to their 
eyes the power of seeing little else than the pictur- 
esque side of things. And of such material there is 
no lack. In the first place, the country throughout 
is far more foreign to an American than an)- coun- 
try of Europe, except that part of Europe in close 
proximity to its Asiatic border. Transport a per- 
son of tolerably good geographical information, 
without giving him any intimation as to where he 
was going, to almost any part of the great plateau of 
Mexico — outside of the larger cities — and he would 
at once conclude that he was either at Timbuctoo 
or some part of the " Holy Land." The majority 
of the houses are of adobe (mud), destitute of all col- 
oration, unless dust-gray is a color, and one story 
in height. In Palestine, however, and also (ac- 
cording to report) in Timbuctoo, the roofs are 
"domed"; in Mexico they are flat. The soil dur- 



VILLAGE LIFE IN MEXICO. 



23 



ing the greater part of the year is dry ; the herb- 
age, when there is any, coarse and somber, and the 
whole country singularly lacking in trees and verd- 
ure.* In the fields of the better portions of the 
country, men may be seen plowing with a crooked 
stick, and raising water from reservoirs or ditches 
into irrigating trenches, by exactly the same meth- 
ods that are in use to-day as they were five thou- 
sand years ago or more upon the banks of the Nile. 
In the villages, women with nut-brown skins, black 
hair, and large black eyes, walk round in multitudi- 
nous folds of cotton fabrics, often colored, the face 
partially concealed, and gracefully bearing water- 
jars upon their shoulders — the old familiar Bible 
picture of our childhood over again, of Rebecca 
returning from the fountain. 

Place a range of irregular, sharp, saw-tooth 
hills or mountains, upon whose sides neither grass 
nor shrub has apparently ever grown, in the dis- 
tance ; a cloudless sky and a blazing sun overhead ; 
and in the foreground a few olive-trees, long lines 
of repellent cacti defining whatever of demarkation 
may be needed for fields or roadway, and a few 

* It is not to be understood that there are no forests in Mexico. A 
large part of the low and comparatively narrow and tropical coast belt 
is densely wooded ; and there are also valuable forest-growths on the 
boi-ders of Guatemala and in the Sierra regions of Northern Mexico. 
But the single fact that wood (mainly mesquite) for fuel on the plateau 
of Mexico commands from twelve to fifteen dollars per cord, is suffi- 
cient evidence of its great scarcity. 
1 



24 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



donkeys, the type of all that is humble and forlorn 
— and the picture of village life upon the " pla- 
teau " of Mexico is complete. 

Would any one recall the " Flight of the Holy 
Family into Egypt," it is not necessary to visit the 
galleries of Europe and study the works of the old 
masters, for here on the dusty plains of Mexico all 
the scenes and incidents of it (apart from the Jew- 
ish nationality) are daily repeated : Mary upon a 
donkey, her head gracefully hooded with a blue 
rebozOy and carrying a young child enveloped on 
her bosom in her mantle ; while Joseph, the hus- 
band, bearded and sun-scorched, with naked arms 
and legs, and sandals on his feet, walks ploddingly 
by her side, with one hand on the bridle, and, if 
the other does not grasp a staff, it is because of the 
scarcity of wood out of which to make one, or be- 
cause the dull beast stands in constant need of the 
stimulus of a thong of twisted leather. 

Madame Calderon de la Barca, the Scotch 
wife of one of the first Spanish ministers sent to 
Mexico after the achievement of her independence, 
and who wrote a very popular book on her travels 
in Mexico, published in 1843, ^^so notes and thus 
graphically describes this predominance of the 
" picturesque " in Mexico : 

" One circumstance," she says, " must be ob- 
served by all who travel in Mexican territory. 



THE PICTURESQUE IN MEXICO. 25 

There is not one human being or passing object 
to be seen that is not in itself a picture, or which 
would not form a good subject for the pencil. The 
Indian women, with their plaited hair, and little 
children slung on their backs, their large straw 
hats, and petticoats of two colors ; the long string 
of arrieros with their loaded mules, and swarthy, 
wild - looking faces ; the chance horseman who 
passes with his scrape of many colors, his high, or- 
namental saddle, Mexican hat, silver stirrups, and 
leather boots — all is picturesque. Salvator Rosa 
and Hogarth might have traveled here to advan- 
tage hand-in-hand ; Salvator for the sublime, and 
Hogarth taking him up where the sublime be- 
came ridiculous." 

Where Indian blood greatly predominates in 
the women, the head, neck, shoulders, and legs, to 
the knee, are generally bare, and their garments 
little else than a loose-fitting white cotton tunic, 
and a petticoat of the same material, often of two 
colors. 

At Aguas Calientes, within a hundred yards 
of the station of the " Mexican Central Railroad," 
men, women, and children, entirely naked, may be 
seen bathing, in large numbers, at all hours of the 
day, in a ditch conveying a few feet of tepid water, 
which flows, with a gentle current, from certain 
contiguous and remarkably warm springs. 



26 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

Shoes in Mexico arc a foreign innovation, and 
properly form no part of tlic national costume. 
The great majority of the people do not wear 
shoes at all, and probably never will ; but in their 
place use sandals, composed of a sole of leather, raw- 
hide, or plaited fibers of the maguey-plant, fastened 
to the foot with strings of the same material, as the 
only protection for the foot needed in their warm, 
dry climate. And these sandals are so easily made 
and repaired that every Mexican peasant, no mat- 
ter what may be his other occupation, is always his 
own shoemaker. As a general rule, also, the infant- 
ry regiments of Mexico wear sandals in preference 
to shoes ; " not solely for the sake of economy, but 
because they are considered healthier, keep the feet 
in better condition, arc more easily repaired or 
replaced, and make the marching easier." * Very 
curiously, the pegged shoes of the United States 
and other countries are not made and can not be 
sold in Mexico, as, owing to the extreme dryness of 
the atmosphere, the wood shrinks to such a degree 
that the pegs speedily become loose and fall out. 

The crowning glorv of a Mexican peasant is 
his hat. No matter how poor he may be, he will 
manage to have a sombrero gorgeous with silver 
spangles and hcavv with silver cord, or. if he pre- 

* " United States Consular Reports" on " Lcatlicr and Shoe Indus- 
tries in Foreign Countries," Washinj^ton, 1885. 



CONDITION OF THE LABORING CLASSES. 



27 



fers straw to felt, he will be equally extravagant in 
its decoration ; and, in common with his blanket, 
the hat will be made to do duty for many years. 

^The laboring -classes in Mexico — the so-called 
" peons," who comprise the great bulk of the popu- 
lation — are chiefly Indians, or descendants from In- 
dians, and are a different race from their employers. 
Originally conquered and enslaved by the Span- 
iards, and then emancipated by law, they are, as a 
matter of fact, through their peculiar attachment to 
the place of their nativity, and through certain 
conditions respecting the obligation of debts, al- 
most as permanently attached to the soil of the 
great estates of the country as they were in the 
days of their former peonage, or slavery. And it 
is claimed that the keeping of the peons constantly 
in debt — a matter not difficult to accomplish by 
reason of their ignorance and improvidence — and 
so making permanent residence and the perform- 
ance of labor obligatory on them, is indispensable 
for the regular prosecution of agriculture, inas- 
much as a peon, if he once gets a few dollars or 
shillings in his pocket, and there is a place for him 
to gamble within from fifty to one hundred miles' 
distance, can never be depended upon for any serv- 
ice so long as any money remains to hinO In the 
cities in the northern States of Mexico, where 
American ideas are finding their way among the 



28 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

people, and(\vliere the construction of railways has 
increased the opportunities for employment and 
raised wages, the condition of the peons has un- 
doubtedly greatly improved within recent years; 
but in the agricultural districts the general testi- 
mony is to the elTcct, that there is little appreciable 
change in tiicir condition since their emancipation 
from involuntary servitude, " and very little sym- 
pathy or cordiality between them and their former 
masters and present employers. And in the cities, 
also, the caste feeling between the Indian operatives 
and laborers and the other nationalities, is also re- 
ported as strongly manifesting itself in jealousies 
and prejudices." J 

/ Note. — The extent to which the condition of labor in some, and 
"probably a great, part of Mexico approximates to involuntary servi- 
tude is illustrated by the following extracts from recent United States 
" Consular Reports " : 

" In the State of Chiapas, Southern Mexico, ' laborers are divided 
into two classes, free and debtor. The first receive twenty-five cents 
per day, with rations, or thirty-eight to fifty cents without. The debtor 
class arc those who receive in advance a sum sufficient to pay their 
former proprietor, which sum frequently reaches five hundred dollars 
or more.' When a laborer of the second, or debtor class, is dissati.s- 
ficd, he obtains from the proprietor of the estate where he is situated 
'a statement more or less as follows: 

" ' A. B., laborer [married, widower, or single], seeks employment 

(accommodation) at (of) farm-work for the sum of dollars, which 

he owes me, as per account made to his satisfaction. The person 
who wishes may contract with him, first paying the above sum, for 
which effect a term of eight days is given.* 

"With this document the bearer seeks a new master, and, after the 
debt has been paid, a new contract is made before judicial authority 
for one or more years. The laborer agrees to give his ser^'ices to the 



SERVITUDE THROUGH DEBT. 



29 



labors of the fields on all clays except feast-days. The proprietor 
agrees to pay the salary, supply the stipulated allowances, and make 
necessary advances in money, clothing, and tools. This contract is 
not always made with the above formalities. Sometimes the account 
is simply receipted as paid by the new master, the laborer being sub- 
ject to the customs of the country, and at liberty to leave when he 
shall wish to and can obtain a new master to pay him out. The wife 
of the laborer, except when otherwise stipulated, is obliged to give 
her services in work suitable to her sex. . . . 

" This system is very inconvenient for the proprietors. There is 
an immediate necessity of spending at least eight thousand dollars to 
obtain a supply of forty laborers, and it is often impossible to imme- 
diately obtain this number. Hence the custom, only agreeable to those 
bom in the locality, to go on gathering one by one, until, after many 
years, they have sufficient hands to work a first-class property, which 
is enlarged as the number of laborers is increased. By this means a 
large sum has been invested in persons who offer no other security 
than their personal labor, and the proprietor finds himself obliged to 
exercise great vigilance, organizing the holding in such vv'ay as to 
make the servant feel that his liberty of action is restrained. The 
only way he has to get out of such a condition is to flee, leaving every- 
thing dear to him, including his family. . . . 

" Another inconvenience experienced, not less grave, is caused by 
death of the laborers. 

" And in spite of all this, no" proprietor of this locality will accept 
any laborer born here who does not have a debt against him. "What 
are the causes which have created this custom or necessity? The 
most important causes are the scarcity of laborers, the natural indo- 
lence of the indigenous Indian race, and, most important of all, the 
fertility of the soil. Whether from the excessive heat of the sun or 
from other causes, there exists among inhabitants of intertropical 
America a marked disposition to inaction. This is aided by the fer- 
tility of the soil and the ease with which sufficient may be obtained to 
satisfy the few necessities of those who are happy if they have enough 
for the day. It is therefore natural that man should live thus here ; 
that there should be no spirit of enterprise ; and that agriculture, the 
source of riches, should remain stationary for want of labor. 

" Many proprietors work vainly trying to increase their holdings, 
but the great scarcity of hands prevents ; and this, too, in spite of the 
nearness of populous towns. The poor people in these refuse to work 



30 



A STi'DV OF MEXICO. 



even when ofTercd increased wages, l)eing satisfied to remain as they 
are. The Indian inhabitant contracts a debt in some store kept by 
Europeans or their descendants. The goods are of little or no intrin- 
sic value, but they please his eye, or serve to fulfill promises made to a 
titular saint on condition that he suffer from no pest, or have good 
crops, or satisfy his vices. When the time of payment arrives he can 
not make it, and he goes to a proprietor, who pays the debt and takes 
his labor on the hacienda. He is thus made a debtor laborer, and only 
for this thinks himself obliged to labor. Once reduced to this condi- 
tion the debt is increased by the advances which he needs, and which 
are more than he earns, and his intelligence is not sufficient to under- 
stand business matters. 

" In the municipality of Tuxtla Gutierrez 'wages are from twenty- 
five to thirty-one cents for day-laborers, and the conditions under which 
contracts are made are as follows : The individual presents himself 
before the new master or patron with whom he wishes to obtain a po- 
sition with a paper indicating the sum he owes the one whom he has 
just left, and the one who employs him pays the debt which the paper 
indicates, and they agree upon the time he has to ser\'e and the wage 
he shall receive. The latter is generally two dollars and a half ))er 
month, giving him a ration of com, frijolc, and salt, or four dollars 
without the ration ; in both cases the necessary tools are furnished 
him. The ration consists of six alnimks (six and a half quarts each) 
of corn, half an almud oi frijolc, and one pound of salt. NVhen the 
individual leaves the situation a paper containing his account is given 
him, so that the one who employs him may return the sum he owes,' 

" In the department of Jonuta ' field hands ' are reported as 'under 
a sort of bondage, constituted by a debt of from three hundred to five 
hundred dollars, or even more, which each servant owes ; and, by the 
law which governs these contracts and permits the forced confinement 
of the servant, he who for just cause wishes to change his master shall 
have three days' time, for each one hundred dollars he owes, given him 
to find one who will pay his indebtedness.' '' 

L " As a rule," says Mr. Strother,* " none of the 
working-classes of Mexico have any idea of present 

* Hon. David II. Strother (" Porte Crayon "), of Virginia, late and 
for several years consul-general of the United States in Mexico, a gen- 
tleman who had large opportunities for studying the country, and a 



THE HACIENDAS. 



31 



economy, or of providing for the future. The lives 
of most of them seem to be occupied in obtaining 
food and amusement for the passing hour, without 
either hope or desire for a better future. As the 
strongest proof of this improvidence on the part 
of the city mechanic and laborer, is the constant 
demand for money in advance — from the mechanic, 
under the pretext of getting materials to enable 
him to fill some order, and from the laborer, to 
get something to eat before he begins work." J 

(^On each estate, or hacienda^ there are buildings, 
or collections of buildings, typical of the country, 
borrowed originally, so far as the idea was con- 
cerned, in part undoubtedly from Old Spain, and 
in part prompted by the necessities for defense 
from attack under which the country has been oc- 
cupied and settled, which are also called Jiacicndas ; 
the term being apparently used indifferently to 
designate both a large landed estate, as well as the 
buildings, which, like the old feudal castles, repre- 
sent the ownership and the center of operations 
on the estate. They are usually huge rectangular 
structures — walls or buildings — of stone or adobe, 
intended often to serve the purpose, if needs be, 
of actual fortresses, and completely inclosing an 
inner square or court-3^ard, the entrance to which 

rare faculty of digesting and properly presenting the results of his 
observations. 



32 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



is through one or more massive gates, which, when 
closed at night, are rarely opened until morning. 
The entire structure, or the enceinte, is sometimes 
also surrounded by a moat, while the angles of the 
walls and the gateways are protected by project- 
ing turrets pierced for musketry — defensive pre- 
cautions which the experience of former times 
with bands of highwaymen or hungry revolution- 
ists fully justified, and which in remote parts of the 
country even yet continue.J 

/ Within the court, upon one side, built up against 
an exterior wall, is usually a series of adobe struct- 
ures — low, windowless, single apartments — where 
the peons and their families, with their dogs and 
pigs, live ; while upon the other sides are larger 
structures for the use or residence of the owner 
and his family, or the superintendent of the estate, 
with generally also a chapel and accommodations 
for the priest, places for the storage of produce 
and the keeping of animals, and one or more apart- 
ments entirely destitute of furniture or of any 
means of lighting or ventilation save through the 
entrance or doorway from the court-yard, which 
are devoted to the reception of such travelers as 
may demand and receive hospitality to the extent 
of shelter from the night, or protection from out- 
side marauders! Such places hardly deserve the 
name of inns, but either these poor accommoda- 



LABOR ON THE GREAT ESTATES. 



33 



tions, or camping-out, is the traveler's only alterna- 
tive. They put one in mind of the caravansaries 
of the East, or better, of the inns or posadas of 
Spain, which Don Quixote and his attendant, San- 
cho Panza, frequented, with the court-yard then, as 
now, all ready for tossing Sancho in a blanket in 
presence of the whole population. In some cases 
the Jiacicnda is an irregular pile of adobe buildings 
without symmetry, order, or convenience ; and in 
others, where the estate is large and the laborers 
numerous (as is often the case), the most important 
buildings only are inclosed within the wall — the 
peons, whose poverty is generally a sufficient safe- 
guard against robbery, living outside in adobe or 
cane huts, and constituting a scattered village com- 
munity. 

/ The owners of these large Mexican estates, who 
are generally men of wealth and education, rarely 
live upon them, but make their homes in the city 
of Mexico or in Europe, and intrust the manage- 
ment of their property to a superintendent, who, 
like the owner, considers himself a gentleman, and 
whose chief business is to keep the peons in debt, 
or, what is substantially the same thing, in slavery. 
Whatever work is done is performed by the peons 
— in whose veins Indian blood predominates — in 
their own way and in their own time. They have 
but few tools, and, except possibly some contriv- 



34 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



ances for raising water, nothing worthy the name 
of machinery. Without being bred to any me- 
chanical profession, the peons make and repair 
nearly every implement or tool that is used upon 
the estate, and this, too, without the use of a forge 
or of iron, not even of bolts and nails. The expla- 
nation of such an apparently marvelous result is to 
be found in a single word, or rather material — 
rawhide — with which the peon feels himself quali- 
fied to meet almost an)' constructive emergency, 
from the framing of a house to the making of a 
loom, the mending of a gun, or the repair of a 
broken leg ; and yet, even under these circum- 
stances, the great Mexican estates, owing to their 
exemption from taxation and the cheapness of 
labor, are said to be profitable, and, in cases where 
a fair supply of water is obtainable, to even return 
large incomes to their absentee owners.^) 

(^As agriculture can not be prosecuted on the 
plateau of Mexico without irrigation, the chief ex- 
pense of each hacicuda or cultivated district con- 
sists in providing and maintaining a water-supply, 
which is not infrequently obtained through a most 
extensive and costly system of canals, ponds, and 
dams, whereby the water that falls during the lim- 
ited rainy period is stored up and distributed dur- 
ing the dry season ; and what the great proprie- 
tor accomplishes through a great expenditure of 



SOCIAL LIFE AND CONVENIENCES. 35 

money the Indian communities effect at the pres- 
ent day, as they have from time immemorial, 
through associated, patient, and long-continued 
labor.} 

In no truly Mexican house of high or low de- 
gree, from the adobe hut of the peasant to the great 
stone edifice in the capital said to have been erected 
by the Emperor Iturbide, and now an hotel,* are 
there any arrangements for warming or, in the 
American sense, for cooking ; and in the entire city 
of Mexico, with an estimated population of from 
two hundred and twenty-five to three hundred 
thousand, chimneys, fireplaces, and stoves are so 
rare that it is commonly said that there are none. 
This latter statement is, however, not strictly cor- 
rect; yet it approximates so closely to the truth, 
that but for provision for warm baths, there is prob- 
ably no exception to it in any of the larger hotels of 
the city Avhere foreigners most do congregate. All 
the cooking in Mexico is done over charcoal, or 
embers fanned to a glow ; and fans made of rushes, 
for this special purpose, are a constant commodity 
of the market. The use of bellows is unknown, 
and the employment of the lungs and breath in- 
volves too much effort. Apart from the capital 

* This edifice was not erected by the emperor of that name, as is 
currently reported ; but by a wealthy Mexican citizen for the accom- 
modation of his family — a wife or two, some concubines, and upward 
of sixty children ! 



36 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

and some of the larger cities, Mexico is notably 
deficient in hotels or inns for the accommodation 
of travelers, and in a majority of the smaller towns 
there are no such places. And why should there 
be ? The natives rarely go anywhere, and conse- 
quently do not expect anybody to come to them. 
Large, costly, and often elegant stone edifices — 
public and private — are not wanting in tlie princi- 
pal towns and cities of Mexico ; but all, save those 
of very recent construction, have the characteris- 
tic Saracenic or Moorish architecture of Southern 
Spain — namely, a rectangular structure with rooms 
opening on to interior piazzas, and a more or less 
spacious court-yard, which is often fancifully paved 
and ornamented with fountains and shrubbery ; 
while the exterior, with its gate-furnished arch- 
ways and narrow and iron-grated windows, sug- 
gests the idea of a desire for jealous seclusion on 
the part of the inmates, or fear of possible outside 
attack and disturbance. Wooden buildings are 
almost unknown in Mexico, and in all interiors 
wood is rarely used where stone, tiles, and iron are 
possible applications. Consequently, and, in view 
of the scarcity of water, most fortunately, there 
are few fires in Mexico : nothing akin to a fire 
department outside of the city of Mexico, and but 
little opportunity for insurance companies or the 
business of insurance agents. As a general rule, 



HOMES OF THE PEOPLE. 37 

the buildings of Mexico, exclusive of the huts, in 
which the masses of the people live, are not over 
one story in height, f^at-roofed, and have neither 
cellars nor garrets ; and in buildings of more than 
one story the upper flloor is alvva3's preferred as 
a dwelling, and thus in the cities commands the 
highest rent. There do not, moreover, seem to 
be any aristocratic streets or quarters in the cities 
of Mexico ; but rich and poor distribute themselves 
indiscriminately, and not unfrequently live under 
the same roof.* 

* Some of the recently improved and newer parts of the city of 
Mexico, lying remote from the center, are an exception to this rule, 
and are being built up with a handsome class of houses, while the ad- 
jacent streets are broad and well paved. 



CHAPTER II. 

Popular fallacies concerning Mexico — Tts geographical position and 
physical characteristics — Elevation of the "Mexican Central Rail- 
road " — The valley of the city of Mexico — The " City of Mexico 
and Vera Cruz Railroad " — The " TUrras Calientes " — No navi- 
gable rivers in Mexico — Population — Character of the Aztec civil- 
ization — A development of the " Stone Age " — The romance of 
Prescott's History — The predecessors of the Aztecs— Counterparts 
of the mounds of the United States in Mexico — Possible explana- 
tion of their origin. 

The popular opinion conccrnini^ Mexico is that 
it is a country of marvelous and unbounded natu- 
ral resources. Every geography invites attention 
to the admirable location of its territory, between 
and in close proximity to the two great oceans ; to 
the great variety, abundance, and richness of its 
tropical products — sugar, coffee, tobacco, dye and 
ornamental woods, vanilla, indigo, cacao, cochineal, 
fruits, fibers, and the like ; and to the number of 
its mines, which for more than two centuries have 
furnished the world with its chief supply of silver, 
and are still productive. The result is, that with 
a majority of well-informed people, and more es- 
pecially with those who have read about Mexico 



MEXICO A POOR COUNTRY. 



39 



in those charming- romances of Prescott, and who, 
in flying visits to its capital, have found so much 
to interest them in the way of the picturesque, 
and have brought to their eyes little capacit}^ for 
seeing- anything else, the tendency has been to con- 
found the possible with the actual, and to encour- 
age the idea that Mexico is a rich prize, unappreci- 
ated by its present possessors, and only waiting for 
the enterprising and audacious Yankees to possess 
and make much of, by simply coming down and 
appropriating. 

Now, with these current beliefs and impressions 
the writer has little sympathy ; but, on the con- 
trary, his study and observations lead him to the 
conclusion that the Mexico of to-day, through con- 
joined natural and artificial (or human) influences, 
is one of the very poorest and most wretched of all 
countries ; and, while undoubtedly capable of very 
great improvement over her present conditions, is 
not speedily or even ultimately likely, under any 
circumstances, to develop into a great (in the sense 
of highly civilized), rich, and powerful nation. 
And, in warrant and vindication of opinions so an- 
ta,gonistic to popular sentiment, it is proposed to 
ask attention to a brief review of the condition of 
Mexico : first, from its geographical or natural 
standpoint; and, secondly, from the standpoint of its 
historical, social, and political experience. 



40 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

Considered geographically, Mexico is, in the 
main, an immense table-land or plateau, which 
seems to be a flattening out of the Rocky and 
Sierra Nevada Mountains, and which, commencing 
within the territory of the United States as far 
north certainly as Central Colorado, and perhaps 
beyond, extends as far south as the Isthmus of 
Tehuantepec ; a north and south length, measur- 
ing from the southern frontier-line of the United 
States, of about two thousand miles. Entering 
the country by the " Mexican Central Railway " at 
El Paso, where the plateau has already an eleva- 
tion of 3,717 feet, the traveler progressively and 
rapidly ascends, though so gradually that, except 
for a detour, made obligatory in the construction of 
the road to climb up into the city of Zacatecas, 
he is hardly conscious of it, until, at a point known 
as Marquez, 1,148 miles from the starting-point and 
'jd miles from the city of Mexico, the railroad- 
track attains an elevation of 8,134 feet, or 1,849 '^^^^ 
higher than the summit of Mount Washington. In 
fact, as Humboldt, as far back as 1803, pointed out, 
so regular is the great plateau on the line followed 
by the " Central" road, and so gentle are its surface 
slopes where depressions occur, that the journey 
from the city of Mexico to Santa Fe, in New Mexi- 
co, might be performed in a four-wheeled vehicle. 

From Marquez, or the railroad " summit," the 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF MEXICO. 



41 



line descends rapidly, some six hundred feet, into 
the valley of the city of Mexico ; which valley is 
really an elevated plain, thirty-one by forty-five 
miles in extent, having an average altitude of about 
7,500 feet above the sea-level, and inclosed by high 
and irregular mountain-ridges, from which rise 
two volcanic peaks — Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl 
— to the height of 17,884 and 15,705 feet respect- 
ively, and whose summits are covered with per- 
petual snows. And it is at the lowest point, and 
near the center of this valley, or plain, and sur- 
rounded by a group of lakes, which in turn are 
bordered by swamps, that the city of Mexico is 
located. 

Starting next from the city of Mexico, and go- 
ing east toward the Atlantic, or west toward the 
Pacific, for a distance in either direction of about 
one hundred and sixty miles, we come to the 
edge or terminus of this great plateau ; so well 
defined and so abrupt, that in places it seems as 
if a single vigorous jump would land the experi- 
menter, or all that was left of him, at from two to 
three thousand feet lower level. 

The annexed cut approximately represents the 

profile of the country between the two oceans, and 

in the latitude of the city of Mexico. 

i^ Up the side of the almost precipice, which 

bounds the plateau on the east — tunneling through 



42 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

or winding round a succession of mountain prom- 
ontories — the " Vera Cruz and City of Mexico Rail- 
road " has been constructed ; "rising" or "falhng" 




Mexican Taule-lasd. 

— according to the direction traveled — over four 
thousand feet, in passing over a circuitous track 
of about twenty -five miles; and of which elevation 
or depression, about twenty-five hundred perpen- 
dicular feet are comprised within the first twelve 
miles, measured from the point where the descent 
from the edge of the plateau begins. To overcome 
this tremendous grade in ascending, a sort of double 
locomotive — comprising two sets of driving ma- 
chinery, with the boilers in the center, and known as 
the " Farlie " engine — is emplovcd ; and even with 
this most powerful tractor it is necessary, with an 
ordinary train, to stop every eight or ten miles, in 
order to keep up a sufficient head of steam to over- 
come the resistance. In descending, on the other 
hand, only sufficient steam is necessary to work 
the brakes and counteract the tendency to a too 
rapid movement. As an achievement in engineer- 
ing the road has probablv no parallel, except it 
may be in some of the more recent and limited 



THE VERA CRUZ RAILROAD. 43 

constructions among the passes of Colorado ; and, 
as might be expected, the cost of transportation 
over the entire distance of 263 miles, from Vera 
Cruz to the city of Mexico, is very heavy, although 
at an enormous reduction on the cost of all meth- 
ods previously employed. When the road was 
first opened, the charges for first-class freight per 
ton were %'j6 ; second class, $65 ; and by passenger- 
trains, $97.77. Since the opening of, and under the 
influence of the competition of, the " Mexican Cen- 
tral," these rates have been reduced to an average 
of about $40 to $45 per ton, and still the business 
is understood to be not especially remunerative. 
Begun in 1857, this road was not completed, owing 
mainly to the disturbed state of the country, until 
1873. It was built under English supervision, and 
with English capital, at a reported cost — including 
workshops and equipment — of about $27,000,000, 
although capitalized at $37,782,000, and is solid 
and excellent throughout. The parties — citizens of 
Mexico — to whom the concession for building the 
road was originally granted, also received in the 
way of subvention from the national Govern- 
ment, from the time the first concession was made 
in 1857 to the period of the completion of the 
road in 1873, the sum of $7,056,619. It is further 
claimed by the Mexican authorities that owing to 
extraordinary errors in commencing the construe- 



44 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



tion of the road, and the intentional diversion of 
the line as projected by the engineers, in order to 
benefit certain factories and estates of the grantee 
of the road — Mr. Antonio Escandon — the length of 
the road was increased from 304 to 423 kilome- 
tres* and entailing an unnecessary expenditure of 
$6,743,938. During the year 1876 the road was de- 
stroyed at different points by the revolutionists, 
and all trafific for a considerable time suspended. 

At the station " Esperanza," one hundred and 
fifty miles from the city of Mexico, on the farther 
side of a great sandy plain, and on the very verge 
of the plateau, and where the descent may be said 
to abruptly begin, the stations, engine-houses, and 
shops, built of dressed stone, are as massive and 
elegant as any of the best suburban stations on any 
of the British railways. And, as illustrating how 
rigidly the English engineers adhered to home 
rules and precedents, the constructions at this sta- 
tion include a ver}' elegant and expensive arched 
bridge of dressed stone, with easy and extended 
approaches, to guard against danger in crossing 
the tracks ; although, apart from the persons in the 
employ of the company, the resident population is 
very inconsiderable. 

Starting from this point in tlic carlv morning 
of the 27th of March, to make the descent to the 

* The kilometre = 0.621 United States mile. 



THE TIERRAS CALIENTES. 



45 



comparatively level and low land intervening be- 
tween the base of the plateau and the ocean, the 
ground at the station was white with hoar-frost ; 
while behind it, apparently but a mile or two dis- 
tant, and of not more than fifteen hundred to two 
thousand feet in elevation, rose the glistening, 
snow-covered cone of Orizaba. Within the cars, 
and even with closed windows, overcoats and 
shawls were essential. Within an hour, however, 
overcoats and shawls were discarded as uncomfort- 
able. Within another hour the inclination was to 
get rid of every superfluous garment, while before 
noon the thermometers in the cars ranged from 90° 
to 95° Fahr., and the traveler found himself in the 
heart of the tropics, amid palms, orange-trees, cof- 
fee-plantations, fields of sugar-cane and bananas, al- 
most naked Indians, and their picturesque though 
miserable huts of cane or stakes, plastered with 
mud and roofed with plantain-leaves or corn-stalks. 
In the descent, Orizaba (17,373 feet), which at the 
starting-point, and seen from an elevation of about 
8,000 feet, is not impressive in respect to height, al- 
though beautiful, gradually rises, and finally, when 
seen from the level of the low or coast lands, be- 
comes a most magnificent spectacle, far superior to 
Popocatepetl, which is higher, or any other Mexi- 
can mountain, but, in the opinion of the writer, in- 
ferior in subHmity to Tacoma in Washington Ter- 



46 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

ritory, the entire elevation of which last (14,300 
feet) can, in some places, be taken in at a single 
glance from the sea-level and a water-foreground. 
The comparatively narrow and gently sloping strip 
of land which the traveler thus reaches on the At- 
lantic side in journeying from Mexico to Vera Cruz 
extends from the base of the great plateau to the 
ocean, and, with its counterpart on the Pacific side, 
constitutes in the main the so-called " Ticrras Ca- 
licutcs'' (hot lands), or the tropical part of Mexico. 
The average width of these coast-lands on the At- 
lantic is about sixty miles, while on the Pacific it 
varies from forty to seventy miles. 

Considered as a whole, the geographical con- 
figuration and position of Mexico have been com- 
pared to an immense cornucopia, with its mouth 
turned toward the United States and its concave 
side on the Atlantic ; having an extreme length of 
about 2,000 miles, and a varying width of 1,100 
miles (in latitude 25° north) to 130 miles at the Isth- 
mus of Tehuantepec. Its territorial area is 939,700 
square miles, or a little larger than that part of the 
United States which is situated east of the Missis- 
sippi River, exclusive of the States of Wisconsin 
and Mississippi ; and this cornucopia in turn, as has 
been before intimated, consists of an immense table- 
land, nine tenths of which have an average eleva- 
tion of from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. Such an elevation 



CLIMATE OF THE MEXICAN PLATEAU. 



A7 



in the latitude of 42° (Boston or New York) would 
have given the country an almost Arctic character ; 
but under the Tropic of Cancer, or in latitudes 18° 
to 25° north, the climate at these high elevations is 
almost that of perpetual spring. At these high ele- 
vations of the Mexican plateau furthermore, the 
atmosphere is so lacking in moisture, that meat, 
bread, or cheese, never molds or putrefies, but 
only spoils by drying up. Perspiration, even when 
walking briskly in the middle of the day, does not 
gather or remain upon the forehead or other ex- 
posed portions of the body ; and it is through this 
peculiarity only of the atmosphere that the city of 
Mexico, with its large population, and its soil reek- 
ing with filth through lack of any good and suffi- 
cient drainage, has not long ago been desolated 
with pestilence. 

The border States of Mexico on the north 
are Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamauli- 
pas. Sonora is larger than the States of Ohio and 
Indiana combined ; Chihuahua is nearly as large as 
New York and Pennsylvania : Coahuila is larger 
than New York ; and Tamaulipas is nearly as large 
as Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Mas- 
sachusetts combined. 

The surface of the great Mexican plateau, or 
table-land, although embracing extensive areas of 
comparatively level surface, which are often des- 
3 



48 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

erts, is nevertheless largely broken up b}^ ranges of 
mountains, or detached peaks — some of which, like 
Popocatepetl, Orizaba, and Toluca, rise to great 
elevations — a circumstance which it is important to 
remember, and will be again referred to, in consid- 
ering the possible future material development of 
the country. 

Again, if we except certain navigable chan- 
nels which make up for short distances from the 
sea into the low, narrow strips of coast-lands, there 
is not a navigable river in all Mexico; or, indeed, 
any stream, south of the Rio Grande, that in the 
United States, east of the Mississippi, would be re- 
garded as of any special importance. Wells, except 
a few "artesian," are also so scarce on the plateau of 
Mexico that their very existence has been denied. 

In respect, therefore, to this element of com- 
mercial prosperity, Mexico has been characterized 
as less favored than any considerable country ex- 
cept Arabia ; the name of which last, as is well 
known, stands almost as a synonym for aridity. 

No one accurately knows the total population 
of Mexico, as no undeniably accurate census has 
ever been taken; and there is no immediate pros- 
pect that any will be: certainlv not so long as a 
majority of the people have a fear of giving any 
information in respect to their numbers, as is rep- 
resented, and a not inconsiderable part of the coun- 



POPULATION OF MEXICO. 



49 



try, as has already been pointed out, has never yet 
been brought under the rule of civil authority. A 
census, however, taken in 1879 and officially pub- 
lished in the ^^ Annalcs del Ministcrio de Fomcnto,'" 
reported the population as 9,908,01 1 ;* but by some 

* Table sho'ving the Population and Area in Square Miles of each 
of the States of Mexico, according to the Censtis of i8jg. 



Order of 
density of 
population. 



I 
2 

3 

4 
5 
6 

7 
8 

9 
10 
II 

12 
13 
14 

15 
16 

17 

i3 

19 
20 
21 
22 

23 
24 
25 
26 

27 
28 
29 



NAME OF STATE. 



The Federal District (city of 

Mexico) 

State of Mexico 

" Morelos 

" Tlaxcala 

" Guanajuato 

" Puebla 

" Queretaro 

" Hidalgo 

" Aguas Calientes . . . . 

'• Michoacan 

" Jalisco 

" Oaxaca 

" Vera Cruz 

" San Luis Potosi . . . . 

" Zacatecas 

" Colima 

" Chiapas 

" Guerrero 

" Yucatan 

" Tabasco 

" Nuevo Leon 

" Sinaloa 

" Tamaulipas 

" Durango 

" Campeachy 

" Chihuahua 

" Coahuila 

" Sonora 

Territory of LoM'er California. 

Total for the republic . 



463 
7,840 

1,776 
1,622 

11,413 

12,019 

3,205 

8,161 

2,897 

23,714 

39.174 

33,582 

26,232 

27.503 

22,990 

3.746 

16,048 

24.552 
29,569 
11,849 

23,637 

36,200 
27,916 

42.511 

25,834 
83,751 
50.904 

79,020 

61,563 



739,700 



Number of 
population. 



351.804 
710,579 
159.160 
138,958 
834.845 
784,466 
203,250 
427,350 
140,430 
661,534 
983,484 
744,000 
542,918 
516,486 
422,506 

65,827 
205,362 
295.590 
302,315 
104,747 
203,284 
186,491 
140,137 
190,846 

90,413 
225,541 
130,026 

115.424 
30,208 



9,908,011 



Population 

per square 

mile. 



759 
90 

89 
85 
73 
65 
63 
52 
48 
27 
25 
22 
20 
i8 
18 

17 
12 
12 
10 



13-4 



50 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

authorities it is estiuiatcd considerably higher, and 
as even approximating 12,000,000. Of the whole 
number, whatever it may be, fully nine tenths are 
believed to be located upon the high or table lands, 
and only one tenth on the lowlands of the east 
and west coasts. 

So much, then, for Mexico, considered geo- 
graphically or in respect to its natural conditions. 
Let us next, as a means of better comprehending 
its present condition, briefly consider its historic- 
al, social, and political experiences. 

The authentic history of Mexico practically 
commences with its conquest and occupation by 
the Spaniards under Cortes in 1521. The general 
idea is, that the people whom the Spaniards found 
in Mexico had attained to a degree of civilization 
that raised them far above the level of the average 
Indians of North America, more especially in all 
that pertained to government, architecture, agri- 
culture, manufactures, and the useful arts, and the 
production and accumulation of property. For all 
this there is certainly but very little foundation; 
and the fascinating narrations of Prescott, which 
have done so much to make what is popularly con- 
sidered " Mexican history," as well as the Spanish 
chronicles from which Prescott drew his so-called 
historic data, arc, in the opinion of the writer, and 
with the exception of the military record of the 



AZTEC CIVILIZATION. 51 

Spaniards, little other than the merest romance ; 
not much more worth)^ in fact, of respect and 
credence than the equally fascinating- stories of 
"Sindbad the Sailor." And, in defense and war- 
rant for such an unusual and perhaps unpopular 
conclusion, attention is asked to the following cir- 
cumstances and reasons : 

In the Museum of the city of Mexico there is 
probably the best collection of the remains of the 
so-called Aztec people that ever has or probably 
ever will be gathered. Here, ranged upon shelves 
and properly classified, the visitor will see a large 
number and variety of their tools, weapons, and 
implements. Setting aside their fictile or pottery 
products, they are all of stone — the same arrow- 
heads, the same stone hatchets, pestles, and the 
like, which are still picked up on the fields and 
along the water-courses of New England, the South, 
and the West ; and of which there are so many 
public and private collections in the United States 
— no better than, and in some respects inferior in 
artistic merit and finish to, many like articles ex- 
cavated from the Western mounds, or known to 
have been the work of our historic Indians ; or to 
the arrow-heads and lance-tips which are still fabri- 
cated by the Shoshones and Flatheads on the Co- 
lumbia and Snake Rivers. In all this large collec- 
tion there is no evidence, save a very few copper 



52 A STUDY OF MEXICO. ' 

implements, the use of which is somewhat doubt- 
ful, that the Aztecs ever had any knowledge and 
made any use of metal tools; and in onl}- a com- 
paratively few instances have fabrications of cop- 
per, of unquestionable antique origin, ever been 
discovered in connection with Aztec remains in 
Mexico.* And of the pottery and stone-work in 

* In 1873 a workman, employed in making a reconnaissance of a 
vein of copper in the State of Guerrero, uncovered an excavation seme 
eleven feet long by five deep and three and a half wide, at the bottom 
of which was found a vein of copper from one and a half to four inches 
thick. Examination showed that the vein had been worked, and that, 
while there was no sign of the use of iron or powder, the walls and the 
floor presented traces of fire. At first no tools were discovered ; but 
on a careful search among the debris there were found one hundred and 
forty-two masses of stone of various sizes, different from any of the rocks 
constituting the mountain, shaped like hammers and wedges, and the 
edges of which were worn and broken off. Here, then, was evidently 
a vein of copper which had been worked to a limited extent by the na- 
live races in earlier times ; and their method of mining was also clearly 
shown to be by the rude process of rendering the rock friable by heat- 
ing and rapidly cooling, and then pounding off metal by means of stone 
hammers and wedges. 

Cortes, in one of his letters to Charles V, states that, in addition to 
the tribute of maize, honey, and cloth which was paid to the Mexican 
kings before the downfall of their empire by certain subject tribes, the 
furnishing of a number of hatchets of vX)pper was required. But what 
sort of hatchets these were is indicated by the circumstance, that some 
years ago an earthern pot was uncovered by the plow in a field near 
Oaxaca, which contained no less than two hundred and seventy-six of 
them ; all very thin, three or four inches in length, and shaped some- 
what in the form of the letter T. And as this description answers to 
other so-called hatchets, which have been discovered at other times and 
places, the idea has been suggested that the articles in question were 
not tools, but ornaments, or possibly coins. According to Seizor Men- 
doza, the director of the National Museum at Mexico, there are in this 



ART AMONG THE AZTECS. 



53 



the shape of idols, small and big, masks, and vases, 
and of which there are many specimens in the mu- 
seum and throughout the country, it is sufficient to 
say that it is all of the rudest kind, and derives its 
chief attraction and interest from its hideousness 
and almost entire lack of anything which indicates 
either artistic taste or skill on the part of its fabri- 
cators. Take any fair collection of what purports 
to be the products of Aztec skill and workmanship, 
and place the same side by side with a similar col- 
lection made in any of the most civilized of the 
islands of the Pacific — the Feejees, the Marquesas, 
or the Sandwich Islands, or from the tribes that 
live on Vancouver's Sound — and the superiority of 
the latter would be at once most evident and un- 

collection certain specimens of bronze chisels, containing 97. 87 per cent 
of copper and 2.13 per cent of tin, malleable, of a hardness inferior to 
iron, but yet sufficiently hard, in his opinion, to serve the purpose of 
a chisel. There is no proof, however, that such implements are of Az- 
tec origin ; and it is evident that they could do but little execution in 
carving a material so excessively hard as the stone of which the great 
idol, the sacrificial block of the museum, and the calendar stone in the 
wall of the cathedral, are composed. 

M. Charney, in the account of his recent explorations in Central 
America (communicated to the " North American Review," iS8o-'8i), 
states that he has seen some large, handsome specimens of ancient cop- 
per axes in Mexico, which were capable of doing service ; resembling 
American axes, "except that, instead of having a socket for the haft, 
the latter was split and the head of the axe secured in the cleft." The 
general conclusions of this writer are, that the American races of Cen- 
tral America, at the time of the invasion of the Spaniards, " had reached 
the transition period between the age of polished stone and the bronze 
age." 



54 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



questionable. In all fairness, therefore, all contro- 
versy with the writer's position, if there is any, 
ougfht to be considered as settled ; for there is no 
more infallible test and criterion of the civilization 
and social condition of either a man or a nation 
than the tools which he or it works with ; and 
stone hatchets and stone arrow-h.eads are the ac- 
companiments of the stone age and all that pertains 
thereto, and their use is not compatible with any 
high degree of civilization or social refinement. 

But this is not all. It is now generally con- 
ceded that the Aztec tribes, that have become 
famed in history, did not number as many as two 
hundred and fifty thousand, and that the area of 
territory to which their rule was mainly confined 
did not much exceed in area the State of Rhode 
Island. The first sight of a horse threw them into 
a panic, and they had no cattle, sheep, swine, dogs, 
or other domestic animals — save the turkey — of any 
account. They had no written language, unless 
the term can be properly applied to rude drawings 
of a kind similar to those with which the North 
American Indian ornaments his skins or scratches 
upon the rocks. It is very doubtful if they had any- 
thing which would be regarded as money ; and in 
the absence of beasts of burden, of any system of 
roads and of wheeled vehicles, or, indeed, of any 
methods of transportation other than through the 



AZTEC CANNIBALISM. 



55 



muscular power and backs of men, they could have 
had but little internal trade or commerce. 

All authorities, furthermore, agree that human 
sacrifices constituted an essential part of their re- 
ligion, and that, as a nation, they were addicted to 
cannibalism, and probably forced the adoption of 
its practice among the contiguous nations whom 
they invaded and possibly subjugated. But " can- 
nibalism," as M. Charney remarks, " had its rise 
among tribes having no cattle, no hunting-grounds, 
and having for their maintenance only vegetable 
food, or an insufficiency of food ; and, if the phe- 
nomenon is observed among civilized nations, it is 
exceptional, as in famine, or as in cities reduced to 
extremities by a protracted siege." * 

Prescott assigns to the Aztec city of Mexico a 
population of three hundred thousand, and sixty 

* " We find cannibalism in America at the time of the conquest 
among the Caribs ; in the islands of the Pacific, where the natives had 
for their only sustenance cocoanuts and fish ; and in Australia, where 
the soil was so poor that not only was man a cannibal, but he was 
furthermore constrained to limit the population. But no tribe, how- 
ever savage, having at hand — whatever the trouble might be of secur- 
ing the prey — bears, reindeer, horses, or oxen, is ever cannibalistic. 
Now, the natives of Central America and Mexico at the time of the 
conquest were cannibals, though the time had gone by when necessity 
compelled them to be such. They were farmers ; cultivated several 
species of grain, and derived from the chase, and from animals, food 
sufficient to support life. Why, then, were they cannibals? The 
reason is, though they would not themselves account for it in that 
way, that they were complying with religions tradition." — M. Charney, 
" North American Review," October, 1880. 



56 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

thousand houses, and abundant fountains and reser- 
voirs of water ; but a very brief reflection would 
seem to make it evident that no such population 
could have been regularly supported, mainly with 
bulky agricultural food transported on the backs of 
men, or in light canoes through canals from the 
neighboring small salt lakes ; or supplied with wa- 
ter sufficient for fountains, drinking, and domestic 
purposes, through an earthen pipe " of the size of a 
man's body," brought some miles " from Chapulte- 
pec," the water adjacent to the city being then, as 
now, salt and unfit for use. What their manufact- 
ures could have been, with stone tools and the 
most primitive machiner)', it is not difficult to con- 
jecture. Probably not materially different from 
what the traveler may yet see at the present day 
in the case of the Indian woman, who, seated by 
the wayside, with a bundle of wool under her arm 
and a spindle consisting of a stem of wood, one 
end resting in a cup formed from the shell of a 
gourd, dexterously and rapidly draws out and 
spins a coarse but not uneven thread. If any 
higher degree of manufacturing industry had ever 
been attained by this people, it probably would not 
have been utterly forgotten in later days ; and the 
fact is that, " even at the present time, the greater 
proportion of the domestic utensils, laborers' tools 
and implements, and articles of clothing in common 



ROMANCE OF PRESCOTT'S NARRATIVE. 



57 



use in Mexico, arc said to be of Indian manufact- 
ure, and differing- very little, if at all, from those 
used before the conquest." Even in the capital of 
the republic, says Mr. Consul Strother, where Eu- 
ropean ideas and habits most generally prevail, a 
large proportion of the population now use no 
other bed than the traditional Indian mat, and find 
their principal food in the Indian corn, ground by 
hand on the metate, a hollow stone, identical in 
form and character with those used four centuries 
ago by the wives of the Indian emperors to pre- 
pare the corn and the chocolate for their august 
lords; and in the capital, also, as throughout the 
republic, the kitchens are furnished with cookery- 
vessels of Indian manufacture, spoons, bowls and 
platters of horn, w'ood, calcbasa baskets, and trays 
of woven rushes and palm-leaves, unchanged in 
form and character from those described in the 
earliest histories of the country. 

What Aztec architecture was may be inferred 
from the circumstance that Cortes, with his little 
band of less than five hundred Spaniards, leveled 
to the ground three quarters of the city of Tenoch- 
titlan in the seventeen days of his siege ; while of 
the old city of Mexico, with its reported palaces 
and temples, there is absolutely nothing left which 
is indicative of having formed a part of any grand 
or permanent structure. 



58 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

That there was, antecedent to the Aztecs, in 
this country of Mexico and Central America, a 
superior race to which the name of Toltecs or 
Mayas has been applied, who built the elaborate 
stone structures of Yucatan and of other portions 
of Central America, and who, it would seem, must 
have been acquainted with the use of metals, can 
not be doubted. At a town called Tula, about 
fifty miles from Mexico, on the line of the Mexican 
Central, where the Toltecs are reported to have 
-first settled, the traveler will see on the plaza the 
lower half — i. e., from the feet to the waist — of two 
colossal and rude sitting figures ; also, several per- 
fect cylindrical sections of columns, which were 
very curiously arranged to fit into and support 
each other by means of a tenon and mortise, all of 
stone. The material of which these objects of un- 
questionably great antiquity are composed, and 
which all archaeologists who have seen them agree 
are not Mexican or Aztec in their origin, is a very 
peculiar basalt, so hard that a steel tool hardly 
makes an impression upon it. When the same 
traveler arrives in the city of Mexico, and is shown 
the three greatest archaeological treasures of Amer- 
ican origin — namely, the great idol, " Huitzilopocht- 
li," the " Sacrificial Stone," and the so-called " Cal- 
endar" stone, now built into one of the outer walls 
of the cathedral — he might remark that the mate- 



THE AGE OF THE TO L TECS. 



59 



rial of which they are all constructed is the same 
hard, black stone which constitutes the relics at 
Tula, and that neither in the large collections of 




Calendar Stone. 

the Museum of Mexico, nor an3^where else, are 
there any articles, of assumed Aztec origin, com- 
posed of like material. Hence an apparently legiti- 
mate inference that the latter have a common ori- 
gin with the constructions at Tula, and are relics of 
the Toltecs or older nations, and not of the Aztecs. 



6o ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

Again, while much speculation has been had in 
respect to the origin and use of the mounds of our 
Western and Southwestern States, it seems to have 
been overlooked that almost the exact counterparts 
of these mounds exist to-day in the earth-pyramid 
of Cholula, near Puebla, and the two pyramids ot 
Teotihuacan, about fifty miles east of the city of 
Mexico; and that those structures were in use for 
religious rites and purposes — i.e., "mound -wor- 
ship " — at the time of the invasion of the country 
by the Spaniards under Cortes. It seems difficult, 
therefore, to avoid also this further inference, that 
there is an intimate connection as to origin and use 
between all these North American mound-struct- 
ures, and that they are all the work of substantially 
one and the same people, who found their last de- 
velopment and, perhaps, origin in Mexico or Cen- 
tral America. In calling attention to these circum- 
stances, and in venturing opinions concerning them, 
the writer makes no pretension to archaeological 
knowledge, but he simply offers what seem to him 
the simple, common-sense conclusions which every 
observer must come to, who does not bring to his 
eye a capacity for seeing what has been limited by 
some preconceived theories. 

Note. — When the views as above expressed respecting the charac- 
ter of the civilization of the Aztecs were originally presented in the 
pages of " The Popular Science Monthly," they evoked, especially 
from Mexican sources, not a little adverse criticism ; and the author 



THE SPANISH CHRONICLES. 6 1 

was accused "of a pompous and presumptuous way of dealing with 
historic facts," and a "curious boldness" in rejecting "the Spanish 
chronicles and the writings of Prescott, without offering any better au- 
thority to upset them." The question at issue, however, is not one of 
sentiment, but of fact ; and if the evidence concerning the tools and 
implements, the manufactures and architecture, the absence of domes- 
tic animals, the lack of facilities for transportation, the ignorance of 
money and of a written language, the existence of a ferocious religious 
faith, and the practice of cannibalism, which the author has adduced 
in respect to the race which the Spaniards found dominant in the 
country at the time of their invasion, is fully in accordance with the 
facts and unimpeachable, then the latitude of deduction is so very 
narrow that the charge of presumption against those wJio may differ 
from the conclusions of the Spanish chroniclers certainly can not be 
well founded. Again, Cortes landed in Mexico with a force of five 
hundred and fifty Spaniards, two to three hundred Indians, a few ne- 
groes, and twelve or thirteen horses ; and, with this small force, con- 
siderably reduced in numbers, but with some six thousand Indian 
allies, he completely overthrew and subjugated an empire whose chief 
city, according to Mr. Prescott, contained a population of three hun- 
dred thousand. As no such results in warring against foreign or savage 
nations had ever before been achieved by Europeans — the compara- 
tively small tribe of the West India Caribs. for example, having even 
then (as well as subsequently) successfully resisted subjugation by the 
Spaniards — Cortes and his associates undoubtedly foresaw that the in- 
ferences of the European public would be, that the races they subdued 
were in the highest degree effeminate and incapable of much resist- 
ance ; and with such an anticipation what could be more natural than 
that they should magnify the numbers and the civilization of their op- 
ponents, as a guarantee of their own valor and apparently superhuman 
achievements ? The author has also the satisfaction of learning, since 
his views were first presented to the public, that they are in full accord 
with the independent conclusions of some of the leading American 
archaeologists and historians. 



CHAPTER III. 

Spanish colonial policy in Mexico — IIow Spain protected her home 
industries against colonial competition — Origin of the War of In- 
dependence — Portraits of the Spanish viceroys — The last auto-da- 
fe in Mexico — Portraits of distinguished Mexicans in the National 
Hall of Embassadors — Ingratitude of the republic — The Ameri- 
can war of invasion and the spoliation of Mexico — Injustice of 
the war. 

The Spanish rule over Mexico lasted for just 
three hundred years, or from 1521 to 1821 ; and, 
during the whole of this long period, the open and 
avowed policy of Spain was, to regard the country 
as an instrumentality for the promotion of her own 
interests and aggrandizement exclusively, and to 
utterly and contemptuously disregard the desires 
and interests of the Mexican people. The govern- 
ment or viceroyalty established by Spain, in Mexi- 
co, for the practical application of this policy, ac- 
cordingly seems to have always regarded the at- 
tainment of three things or results as the object 
for which it was mainly constituted, and to have 
allowed nothing of sentiment or of humanitarian 
consideration to stand for one moment in the way 
of their rigorous prosecution and realization. These 



SPANISH COLONIAL POLICY. 63 

were, first, to collect and pay into the royal treas- 
ury the largest possible amount of annual revenue ; 
second, to extend and magnify the authority and 
work of the established Church ; third, to protect 
home (i. e., Spanish) industries. 

Starting with the assumption that the countr}^ 
with all its people and resources, Avas the absolute 
property of the crown in virtue of conquest, the 
accomplishment of the first result was sought 
through the practical enslavement of the whole na- 
tive population, and the appropriation of the largest 
amount of all production that was compatible with 
the continued existence of productive industries. 
With the civil power at the command of the 
Church, the attainment of the second result was 
from the outset most successful ; for, with a pro- 
fession of belief and the acceptance of baptism, on 
the one hand, and the vigilance of the Inquisition 
and a menace of the fires of the auto-da-fe on the 
other, the number of those who wanted to exem- 
plify in themselves the supremacy of conscience or 
the freedom of the will was very soon reduced to 
a minimum. And, finally, the correctness or ex- 
pediency of the principle of protection to home 
(Spanish) industry having been once accepted, it 
was practically carried out, with such a logical 
exactness and absence of all subterfuge, as to be 
worthy of admiration, and without parallel in all 



64 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

economic history. For, in the first instance, with 
a view of layin<^ the axe directly at the root of the 
tree of commercial freedom, all foreign trade or 
commercial intercourse with any country other 
than Spain was prohibited under pain of death ; 
and this ordinance is believed to have been kept 
in force until within tiic present century. No 
schools or educational institutions save those of an 
ecclesiastical nature were allowed, and in these, in- 
struction in almost every branch of useful learning 
was prohibited. Certain portions of Mexico were 
admirably adapted, as they yet arc, to the cultiva- 
tion of the vine, the olive, the mulberrv, and of 
fiber-yielding plants, and also for the keeping and 
breeding of sheep ; but, as a colonial supply of 
wine,* oil, silk, hemp, and wool might interfere 
with the interests of home producers, the produc- 
tion of any or all of these articles was strictly pro- 

♦ " The grape-culture is destined to become one of the most im- 
portant of Mexican industries. A very large area of the republic, 
with its volcanic soils, will be found most admirably adapted to this 
industry, while as a matter of fact the vine will grow in every valley 
and place that can be irrigated. The two most important wine-grow- 
ing regions of the republic are that of Paso del Norte, in Chihuahua, 
and that of Durango and Coahuila, of which Parras, in the latter State 
— a name meaning grape-vines — is the best-known point. The wine 
of Parras, in spite of the difficulty and expense of transportation, has 
gained a good reputation outside of Mexico. Connoisseurs say that it is 
worthy of comparison with the best of sherr}'." The value of the wine 
and brandy produced in Mexico was returned in 1883 at $3,711,000. — 
" Report on the Agriculture of Mexico," U. S. Department of Agri- 
culture, Washington, 1884. 



PORTRAIT OF CORTES. 65 

hibited ; neither was any manufacture whatever 
allowed which could by any possibility interfere 
with any similar industry of Old Spain. When 
Hidalgo, a patriotic Catholic priest, about the year 
1 8 10, with a desire to diversify the industries of his 
country and benefit his countrymen, introduced the 
silk-worm and promoted the planting of vineyards, 
the authorities destroyed the one and uprooted 
the other ; and through these acts first instigated 
the rebellion that ultimately overthrew the govern- 
ment and expelled the Spaniards from Mexico. 
All official posts in the country, furthermore, were 
filled by Spaniards, and the colonial offices were 
regularly sold in Madrid to the highest bidder. 

In the National Museum in the city of Mexico 
is a nearly or quite complete collection of the por- 
traits of the fifty-seven Spanish viceroys who suc- 
cessively governed the country, and were endowed 
with royal prerogatives. The series commences 
with a portrait of Cortes, which is said to be an 
original ; and, according to Mr. Prescott (who pre- 
fixed an engraved copy of it to the third volume of 
his " Conquest of Mexico "), has been indorsed by 
one of the best Spanish authorities, Don Antonio 
Uguina, as the " best portrait " of the conqueror 
that was ever executed. It is an exceedingly strik- 
ing face, full of character, and more quiet, contem- 
plative, and intellectual than might have been ex- 



66 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

pectcd from his stirring and eventful career ; and, 
as the picture is neglected and apparently in a state 
of decay, a copy of it ought at once to be acquired 
by our national Government and placed in the 
Capitol at Washington ; or, in neglect thereof, by 
some one of our historical societies. For, what- 
ever may be the opinion entertained concerning 
the man and his acts, there can be no question that 
he was one of the most conspicuous characters in 
American history, and has left his mark indelibly 
upon what is now no small part of the territory of 
the United States. Of the long series of portraits 
of his successors, as they hang upon the walls of 
the museum, the majority depicted in gorgeous 
vice-regal robes, and with stars and orders of no- 
bility, there is this to be said — that, with few ex- 
ceptions, they represent the most mediocre, unin- 
tellectual, and* uninteresting gi*oup of faces that 
could well be imagined. They convey the idea 
that nearly all of the originals were men past the 
prime of life, whose business had been that of court- 
iers, and who had won their appointments either 
by court favoritism or from the supposed posses- 
sion of qualities which would enable them to extort 
from the country and its people a larger revenue 
for the Spanish treasury than their predecessors. 
Among the few exceptions noted are the portraits 
of Don Juan de Acuna (1722-1734), the only Span- 



PORTRAITS OF THE VICEROYS. 6 J 

ish viceroy born in America (Peru), and the Count 
de Revilla-Gigedo (1789- 1794), both of whom were 
unquestionably rulers of great ability, and who 
might also well be represented in the national gal- 
leries of the United States ; and the portraits of 
occasional ecclesiastical viceroys — bishops or arch- 
bishops — conspicuous among their neighbors by 
reason of their more somber vestments. The faces 
of these latter are not devoid of intellectuality, or 
indications of mental ability ; but they are — one 
and all — stern, unim passioned, and with an expres- 
sion of grim malevolence and bigotr)'^, which as 
much as says, " Woe betide any heretic, or con- 
temner of Church supremacy, who dares to ques- 
tion my authority ! " To which may be properly 
added that, during nearly all the long period of 
Spanish rule in Mexico, the Inquisition, or " Holy 
Office," wielded a power as baleful and as despotic 
as it ever did in Old Spain, and held its last auto- 
da-fe and burned its last conspicuous victim — Gen- 
eral Jose Morelos — in the Plaza of the city of 
Mexico, as late as November, 181 5! 

In 18 10, Mexico, under the lead of Hidalgo — 
whom the modern Mexicans regard as a second 
Washington — revolted against its Spanish rulers, 
and, after many and varying vicissitudes, finally 
attained its complete independence, and proclaimed 
Itself, in 1822, first an empire, and two years later, 



68 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

or in 1824, a republic. From this time until the 
defeat of Maximilian and his party in 1867, the his- 
tory of Mexico is little other than a chronicle of 
successive revolutions, internecine strife, and for- 
eign wars. In the National Palace, in the city of 
Mexico, is a ver}'^ long* narrow room, termed the 
" Hall of Embassadors," from the circumstance that 
the President of the Republic here formally re- 
ceives the representatives of foreign nationalities. 
Upon the walls of this room, and constituting, apart 
from several elaborate glass chandeliers, almost its 
only decoration, is a series of fairly painted, full- 
length portraits of individual Mexicans who, since 
the achievement of independence of Spain, had been 
so conspicuously connected with the state, or had 
rendered it such service, as to entitle them, in the 
opinion of posterity, to commemoration in this sort 
of national " Valhalla." To the visitor, entering 
upon an inspection of these interesting pictures, 
the accompanying guide, politely desirous of im- 
parting all desirable information concerning them, 
talks somewhat after this manner : 

" This is a portrait of the Emperor Iturbide, 
commander-in-chief of the army that defeated and 
expelled the last Spanish viceroy ; elected emperor 
in 1822; resigned the crown in 1823; was pro- 
scribed, arrested, and shot in 1S24. The next is a 
portrait of one of the most distinguished of the 



NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY. 



69 



soldiers of Mexico, General Mariano Arista" (the 
general who commanded the Mexican troops at 
the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma), 
"elected President of the Republic in 185 1, was 
deposed and banished in 1853, and died in exile in 
1855. His remains were brought home at the pub- 
lic expense, in a ship of war furnished by Spain, 
and a special decree commemorative of his services 
was declared by Congress. The next is General 
So-and-so, who also, after rendering most distin- 
guished services, was shot " ; and so on, until it 
seems as if there was not one of their conspic- 
uous men whom the Mexicans of to-day unite in 
honoring for his patriotism and good service, but 
who experienced a full measure of the ingrati- 
tude of his country in the form of exile or public 
execution. In the same gallery is also a good full- 
length portrait of Washington, but, very appropri- 
atel^s it is far removed from all the other pictures, 
and occupies a place by itself at the extreme end 
of the apartment. 

CSince the establishment of her independence in 
1 82 1, Mexico, down to the year 1884 — a period of 
sixty-three years — has had fifty-five presidents, two 
emperors, and one regency, and, with some three or 
four exceptions, there was a violent change of the 
government with every new administration. The 
year 1848 is noted in Mexican annals as the first 



70 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



time when the presidency was transferred without 
violence and under the law — General Arista peace- 
ably succeeding General Herrera. But Arista was 
deposed and banished in the next two years, and in 
the next three months there were four presidents 
of the republic! J Of the original and great leaders 
in the War of Independence — namely, Hidalgo, Mo- 
rclos, and Matamoros — all were shot. The same 
fate befell both of the emperors, and also two of 
the more noted presidents — Guerrero and Mira- 
mon. Of the other presidents, nearly all at one 
time or other were formally banished or compelled 
to flee from the state in order to escape death or 
imprisonment. 

In 1846 came the American war and invasion, 
when the United States, with " one fell swoop," as 
it were, took from Mexico considerably more than 
one half of all its territory — 923,835 square miles 
out of a former total of 1,663,535. It is true that 
payment was tendered and accepted for about one 
thirty-fourth part (the Gadsden purchase) of what 
was taken, but appropriation and acceptance of 
payment were alike compulsory. For this war the 
judgment of all impartial history will undoubtedly 
be that there was no justification or good reason 
on the part of tiie United States. It may be that 
what happened was an inevitable outcome of the 
law of the survival of the fittest, as exemplified 



THE AMERICAN INVASION. 71 

among- nations ; and that the contrasts as seen to- 
day between the hfe, energy, and fierce develop- 
ment of much of that part of Old Mexico that 
became American — Cahfornia, Texas, and Colora- 
do — and the stagnant, poverty-stricken condition 
of the contiguous territory — Chihuahua, Sonora, 
Coahuila — that remained Mexican, are a proof of 
the truth of the proverb that " the tools rightfully 
belong to those who can use them." 

But, nevertheless, when one stands beside the 
monument erected at the foot of Chapultepec, to 
the memory of the young cadets of the Mexican 
Military School — mere boys — who, in opposing the 
assault of the American columns, were faithful unto 
death to their flag and their country, and notes the 
sternly simple inscription, " Who fell in the North 
American invasion " ; and when we also recall the 
comparative advantages of the contending forces — 
the Americans audacious, inspirited with continu- 
ous successes, equipped with an abundance of the 
most improved material of war, commanded by 
most skilled officers, and backed with an overflow- 
ing treasury ; the Mexicans poorly clothed, poorly 
fed, poorly armed, unpaid, and generally led by un- 
educated and often incompetent commanders ; and 
remember the real valor with which, under such 
circumstances, the latter, who had received so little 
from their country, resisted the invasion and con- 
4 



72 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



quest of that country ; and that in no battles of 
modern times have the losses been as great com- 
paratively as were sustained by the Mexican forces 
— there is certainly not much of pleasure or satis- 
faction that a sober-minded, justice-loving citizen 
of the United States can or ought to find in this 
part of his country's history. And, if we are the 
great, magnanimous, and Christian nation that we 
claim to be, no time ought to be lost in proving to 
history and the world our right to the claim, by 
providing, by act of Congress, that all those can- 
non which lie scattered over the plains at West 
Point, bearing the inscriptions " Vera Cruz," " Con- 
treras," " Chapultepec,'' " Molino del Rey," and 
" City of Mexico," and some of which have older 
insignia, showing that they were originally capt- 
ured by Mexican patriots from Spain in their 
struggles for liberty, together with every capt- 
ured banner or other trophy preserved in our 
national museums and collections, be gathered up 
and respectfully returned to the Mexican people. 
For, to longer retain them and pride ourselves on 
their possession is as unworthy and contemptible 
as it would be for a strong man to go into the 
street and whip the first small but plucky and pug- 
nacious boy he encounters, and then, hanging up 
the valued treasures he has deprived him of in the 
hall of his residence, say complaisantly, as he views 



INJUSTICE OF THE MEXICAN WAR. 73 

them, " See what a great and valiant man I am, 
and how I desire that my children should imitate 
my example ! " If it is peace and amity and politi- 
cal influence, and extended trade and markets, and 
a maintenance of the Monroe doctrine on the 
American Continent that we are after, such an act 
would do more to win the hearts and dispel the 
fears and suspicions of the people of Mexico, and 
of all the states of Central and South America, 
than reams of diplomatic correspondence, and end- 
less traveling trade commissioners and formal inter- 
national resolutions. Society is said to be bound 
by laws that always bring vengeance upon it for 
wrong-doing — " the vengeance of the gods, whose 
mills grind slow, but grind exceeding small." 
What penalty is to be exacted of the great North 
American Republic for its harsh treatment and 
spoliation of poor, down-trodden, ignorant, super- 
stitious, debt-ridden Mexico, time alone can reveal. 
Perhaps, as this great wrong was committed at the 
promptings or demand of the then dominant slave- 
power, the penalty has been already exacted and 
included in the general and bloody atonement 
which the country has made on account of slavery. 
Perhaps, under the impelling force of the so-called 
" manifest destiny," a further penalty is to come, in 
the form of an equal and integral incorporation of 
Mexico and her foreign people into the Federal 



74 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



Union. But, if this is to be so, the intelligent and 
patriotic citizens of both countries may and should 
earnestly pray that God, in his great mercy, may 
yet spare them. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Frencli invasion of Mexico — Benito Juarez — Maximilian and his 
empire — Relation of the Church to the French invasion and the 
empire — Nationalization of the Mexican Church — Confiscation of 
its property — Momentous character and influence of this measure — 
Evidences of the perpetuation of the Aztec religion by the Mexi- 
can Indians — Foreign (Protestant) missions in Mexico. 

In 1 86 1, Louis Napoleon, taking advantage of 
the war of the rebelHon in the United States, and 
regarding (in common with most of the statesmen 
of Europe) the disruption of the Great RepubKc 
as prospectively certain, made the suspension by- 
Mexico of payment upon all her public obligations, 
a great part of which were held in Europe, a pre- 
text for the formation of a tripartite alliance of 
France, England, and Spain, for interfering in the 
government of the country ; and in December, 
1861, under the auspices of such alliance, an Anglo- 
French-Spanish military force landed and took pos- 
session of Vera Cruz. From this alliance the Eng- 
lish and Spanish forces early withdrew ; but the 
French remained, and soon made no secret of their 
intent to conquer the countr3^ The national forces, 



76 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

under the leadership of undoubtedly the greatest 
and noblest character that Mexico has produced, 
Benito Juarez, reported to be of pure Indian par- 
entage,* offered a not inglorious resistance ; and 
in at least one instance undoubtedly inflicted a 
severe defeat upon the French army. But with 
the almost universal defection of the clergy and 
the wealthier classes, and with the country weak- 
ened by more than forty years of civil strife and 
an impoverished exchequer, they were finally 
obliged to succumb; and after a period of military 
operations extending over about sixteen months, or 
in June, 1863, the French entered the city of Mexi- 
co in triumph and nominally took possession of the 
whole country. A month later, a so-called " assem- 
blage of notables," appointed by the French gen- 
eral-in-chief, met at the capital, and Avith great 
unanimity declared the will of the Mexican people 
to be the establishment of an empire in the person 
of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, "or such 
other prince as the Emperor Napoleon should des- 
ignate " ; and m pursuance of this act the crown 
was formally offered to Maximilian at his palace 
in Austria in October, 1863, and definitely accepted 
by him in April, 1864. Viewed in the light of sub- 

* He is said to have been a Zapotcc Indian, a race that were of the 
mountainous portions of the country, and which were never fully sub- 
jugated by the Spaniards. 



THE FRENCH INVASION OF MEXICO. 77 

sequent events, the point of greatest interest and 
importance in this scheme on the part of Louis 
Napoleon for the conquest of Mexico and its con- 
version into a French dependency, to the humilia- 
tion of whatever political organizations might be 
left after the war to represent the former Federal 
Union, and to the utter discomfiture of the '' Mon- 
roe doctrine " — a scheme which Napoleon designed 
should constitute the most brilliant feature of his 
reign — was the connection of the Church of Mexi- 
co and its adherents with the movement. If not, 
indeed, as is often suspected, the instigators of it in 
the first instance, they were undoubtedly in full 
sympathy with it from its inception — and with 
good reason. For, as far back as 1856, Juarez, 
when a member of the Cabinet of Alvarez, had 
been instrumental in the adoption of a political 
Constitution which was based on the broadest re- 
publican principles, and which provided for free 
schools, a free press, a complete subjugation of the 
ecclesiastical and military to the civil authority,* 
the abolition of the whole system of class legislation, 
and universal religious toleration — a Constitution 
which, with some later amendments, is still the or- 

■f- Before this date, members of the army and all ecclesiastics could 
only be tried for offenses by privileged and special tribunals composed 
of members of their own orders ; but the Constitution of Juarez abol- 
ished all that, and proclaimed for the first time in Mexico the equality 
of all men before the law. 



;8 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

ganic law of Mexico. Such a reform could not, 
and at the time did not, triumph o\'cr the privi- 
leged classes, the Church, the aristocracy, and the 
military leaders, and, although embodied in the 
form of law, remained in abeyance. 

But the Church and the aristocracy at the 
same time did not fail to recognize that, if Juarez 
and his party ever attained political ascendency, 
their property and privileges would be alike im- 
periled. 

The subversion of the so-called Republic of 
Mexico, with its unstable government and frequent 
revolutions, and its replacement with an empire, 
backed by the then apparently invincible arms of 
France, and with one of the Catholic princes of Eu- 
rope on the throne, were, therefore, most accepta- 
ble to the Mexican Church and its adherents ; and 
in Maximilian of Austria they thought they had 
found a man after their own heart. 

He was a man of elegant presence, winning 
manners, and of much refinement and culture; and 
these qualities, with undoubted personal courage, 
contributed to give him a certain amount of per- 
sonal popularity and sympathy.* But he was, nev- 

* So much has been made by the Church, press, and historians of the 
popularity of Maximilian, and of the genuine public welcome which, it 
has been asserted, was accorded to him on his arrival in Mexico, that 
the Mexican Government, within recent years, has caused to be pub- 
lished certain documents from the national archives, in shape of war- 



CHARACTER OF MAXIMILIAN. 79 

ertheless, in all matters of government, always a 
representative of the highest type of absolutism 
or imperialism, and in devotion to the Catholic 
Church an extremist, even almost to the point of 
fanaticism. The first of these assertions finds illus- 
tration in his establishment of a court, with orders 
of nobility, decorations, and minute ceremonials ; 
the construction and use of an absurd state car- 
riage — modeled after the st3de of Louis XIV — and 
still shown in the National Museum ; and worse, 
by the proclamation and execution of an order 
(which subsequently cost Maximilian his own life), 
that all republican officers taken prisoners in battle 
by the imperialists should be summarily executed 
as bandits ; and, second, by his walking barefoot, 
on a day of pilgrimage, all the way over some two 
or three miles of dusty, disagreeable road, from 
the city of Mexico to the shrine of the Virgin of 
Guadalupe. 

When the attitude and demand of the United 
States, on the termination of the rebellion, induced 
the withdrawal of the French forces from Mexico, 

rants drawn on the national Treasury in 1865 for sums expended in 
Vera Cruz, Cordoba, Orizaba, Puebla, and Mexico, for fireworks, illu- 
minations, triumphal arches, etc., amounting in all to one hundred and 
fifteen thousand dollars ; thus proving, at least in a degree, that what 
were at the time regarded as, and claimed to be, spontaneous manifes- 
tations of popular enthusiasm on the part of the Mexican people, were 
in reality but skillfully airanged devices on the part of the agents of 
Louis Napoleon. 



8o A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

Maximilian, at the suggestion of Louis Napoleon, 
prepared to abdicate; and, in October, 1866, even 
commenced his journey to Vera Cruz, with the in- 
tention of embarking on a French vessel of war 
and leaving the country. Unfortunately for him- 
self, however, he was persuaded by the Church 
party, under assurances of their ability to support 
him, to return to the city of Mexico and resume 
his government. But the attempt was hopeless, 
and culminated some six months later in his capt- 
ure and execution by the republican forces ; and 
with the downfall of the " Maximilian " or the " im- 
perial" government, Juarez became the undisputed, 
and also, to all intents and purposes, the absolute, 
ruler of the country. 

This portion of the more recent history of 
Mexico has been detailed somewhat minutely, be- 
cause the series of events embraced in it led up to 
and culminated in an act of greater importance 
than anything which has happened in the country 
since the achievement of its independence from 
Spanish domination. For no sooner had Juarez 
obtained an indorsement of his authority as Presi- 
dent, by a general election, than he practically car- 
ried out with the co-operation of Congress, and 
with an apparent spirit of vindictiveness (engen- 
dered, it has been surmised, by the memory of the 
oppressions to which his race had been subjected). 



NATIONALIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 8 1 

the provisions of the Constitution which he had 
been instrumental in having adopted in 1857. The 
entire property of the Mexican Church was at once 
'« nationalized " (a synonym for confiscation) for the 
use of the state. Every convent, monastic institu- 
tion, or reHgious house was closed up and devoted 
to secular purposes ; and the members of every re- 
ligious society, from the Jesuits to the Sisters of 
Charity, who served in the hospitals or taught in 
the schools, were banished and summarily sent out 
of the country. And so vigorously and severely is 
the policy of subjugating the ecclesiastical to the 
civil authority, which Juarez inaugurated in 1867, 
still carried out, that no convent or monastery now 
openly exists in Mexico ; and no priest or sister, or 
any ecclesiastic, can walk the streets in any distinct- 
ive costume, or take part in any religious parade 
or procession ; and this in towns and cities where, 
twenty years ago or less, the life of a foreigner or 
skeptic who did not promptly kneel in the streets 
at the " procession of the host " was imperiled. 
Again, while Catholic worship is still permitted in 
the cathedrals and in a sufficient number of other 
churches, it is clearly understood that all of these 
structures, and the land upon which they stand, are 
absolutely the property of the Government, liable 
to be sold and converted to other uses at any time, 
and that the officiating clergy are only *' tenants at 



82 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

will." Even the ringing of the church-bells is regu- 
lated by law. All those rites, furthermore, which 
the Catholic Church has always " classed as among 
her holy sacraments and exclusive privileges, and 
the possession of which has constituted the chief 
source of her power over society, are also now reg- 
ulated by civil law. The civil authority registers 
births, performs the marriage ceremony, and pro- 
vides for the burial of the dead ; and while the 
Church marriage ceremonies are not prohibited to 
those who desire them, they are legally superflu- 
ous, and alone have no validity whatever." (See 
" Report on Church and State in Mexico to the 
State Department," by Consul-General Strother, 
December, 1883.) 

Such an achievement as has been here briefly 
chronicled was, in every respect analogous to and 
was as momentous to Mexico as the abolition of 
slaver}' to the United States. Like slavery in the 
latter countr}', the Catholic Church had become, 
as it were, incorporated into the fundamental in- 
stitutions of Mexico since its first invasion and 
conquest by the Spaniards. It had the sole man- 
agement of all the educational institutions and in- 
fluences of the country ; it held, in the opinion of a 
great majority of the people, the absolute control 
of the keys of heaven and hell ; it had immense 
wealth, mainly in the form of money ready to loan. 



FORMER POWER OF THE CHURCH. 83 

buildings in the cities, and haciendas or estates in 
the country, and all the influences which wealth 
brings. And, even when Mexico achieved her in- 
dependence, the influence of the Church was so 
little impaired by the accompanying political and 
social convulsions, that the national motto or in- 
scription which the new state placed upon its seal, 
its arms, and its banners, was " Religion, Union, and 
Liberty'' 

Except, therefore, for the occurrence of a 
great civil war, which convulsed the whole na- 
tion, and in which the Church, after favoring a 
foreign invasion, and placing itself in opposition 
to all the patriotic, liberty-loving sentiment of the 
country, had been signally beaten, its overthrow, 
as was the case with slavery in the United States, 
would not seem to have been possible. And even 
under the circumstances, it is not a little surpris- 
ing and difihcult of explanation, that a government 
could have arisen in Mexico strong enough and 
bold enough to at once radically overthrow and 
humiliate a great religious system, which had be- 
come so powerful, and had so largely entered into 
the hearts and become so much a part of the cus- 
toms and life of its people ; and that every subse- 
quent national administration and party have now 
for a period of nearly twenty years unflinchingly 
maintained and executed this same policy. 



84 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

How the lower orders of the Mexican people, 
other than the distinctive Indian population, re- 
garded the proceedings of the Government against 
the Church is thus described by M. D6sir6 Char- 
ney, in the account of his researches in Central 
America: "Upon the suppression of the monastic 
orders in Mexico, the confiscation of the proper- 
ty of the clergy, and the demolition of certain 
churches and convents, the multitude protested, 
but without violence. The Icpcros, all covered as 
they were with medals, rosaries, and scapulars, 
pulled down the houses of their fetiches, while the 
old women, indignant witnesses of the sacrilege, 
ejaculated their avcs without ceasing. The ex- 
iles had fulminated the major excommunication 
against whoever should have act or part in the 
work of demolition, or should tread the streets cut 
through the grounds of the torn-down convents ; 
but, after a week or so, all fear vanished, and not 
only did the destroyers go about their work with- 
out remorse, but they even used the sacred wood- 
work of the churches to make their kitchen-fires, 
and the new streets had their passengers like the 
older ones." — "North American Review," Octo- 
ber, iS8o. 

Mr. Strother, who has studied the matter very 
carefully, suggests that an explanation may be 
found in the character of the Indian races of Mexi- 



PERPETUATION OF THE AZTEC FAITH. 85 

CO, who constitute the bulk of the population, and 
" whose native spirit of independence predominates 
over all other sentiments." He also throws out the 
opinion that " the aborigines of the country never 
were completely Christianized ; but, awed by force, 
or dazzled by showy ceremonials, accepted the ex- 
ternal forms of the new faith as a sort of compro- 
mise with the conquerors." And he states that he 
has himself recently attended " religious festivals 
where the Indians assisted, clothed and armed as in 
the days of Montezuma, with a curious intermin- 
gling of Christian and pagan emblems, and ceremo- 
nies closely resembling some of the sacred dances 
of the North American tribes." It is also asserted 
that, on the anniversaries of the ancient Aztec festi- 
vals, garlands are hung upon the great stone idol 
that stands in the court-yard of the National Mu- 
seum, and that the natives of the mountain villages 
sometimes steal away on such days to the lonely 
forests or hidden caves, to worship in secret the 
gods of their ancestors. But, be the explanation 
what it may, it is greatly to the credit of Mexico, 
and one of the brightest auguries for her future, 
that after years of war, and social and political 
revolutions, in which the adherents both of liberty 
and absolutism have seemed to vie with each other 
in outraging humanity, the idea of a constitutional 
government, based on the broadest republican prin- 



86 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

ciples, has lived, and, to as large an extent as has 
perhaps been possible under the circumstances, 
practically asserted itself in a national administra- 
tive system. 

When the traveler visits the cities of Mexico, 
and sees the number and extent of the convents, re- 
ligious houses, and churches, which, having been 
confiscated, are either in the process of decay or 
occupied for secular purposes ; and, in the country, 
has pointed out to him the estates which were for- 
merly the property of the Church, he gets some 
realization of the nature of the work which Juarez 
had the ability and courage to accomplish. And 
when he further reflects on the numbers of idle, 
shiftless, and certainly to some extent profligate 
people, who tenanted or were supported by these 
great properties, and who, producing nothing and 
consuming everything, virtually lived on the super- 
stitions and fears of their countrymen — which they 
at the same time did their best to create and per- 
petuate — he no longer wonders that Mexico and 
her people are poor and degraded, but rather that 
they arc not poorer and more degraded than they 
are. 

r What amount of propertv was owned by the 
Mexican Church and clergy previous to its secu- 
larization is not certainly known (at least by the 
public). It is agreed that they at one time held 



WEALTH OF THE MEXICAN CHURCH. 8/ 

the titles to all the best property of the republic, 
both in city and country ; and there is said to have 
been an admission by the clerical authorities to 
the ownership of eight hundred and sixty-one es- 
tates in the country, valued at $71,000,000; and of 
twenty-two thousand lots of city property, valued 
at $113,000,000; making a total of $184,000,000. 
Other estimates, more general in their character, 
are to the effect that the former aggregate wealth 
of the Mexican Church can not have been less than 
$300,000,000 ; and, according to Mr. Strother, it is 
not improbable that even this large estimate falls 
short of the truth, " inasmuch as it is admitted that 
the Mexican ecclesiastical body well understood 
the value of money as an element of power, and, 
as bankers and money-lenders for the nation, pos 
sessed vast assets which could not be publicly 
known or estimated." Notwithstanding also the 
great losses which the Church had undoubtedly 
experienced prior to the accession of Juarez in 
1867, and his control of the state, the annual rev- 
enue of the Mexican clergy at that time, from 
tithes, gifts, charities, and parochial dues, is be- 
lieved to have been not less than $22,000,000, or 
more than the entire aggregate revenues of the 
state derived from all its customs and internal 
taxes. ) Some of the property that thus came into 
the possession of the Government was quickly sold 



88 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

by it, and at very low prices; and, very curiously, 
was bought, in some notable instances, by other re- 
ligious (Protestant) denominations, which, previous 
to 1857, had not been allowed to obtain even so 
much as tolerance or a foothold in the country. 
Thus, the former spacious headquarters of the or- 
der of the Franciscans, with one of the most ele- 
gant and beautifully proportioned chapels in the 
world within its walls, and fronting in part on the 
Calle de San Francisco, the most fashionable street 
in the city of INIexico, was sold to Bishop Riley 
and a well-known philanthropist of New York, 
acting for the American Episcopal missions, at 
an understood price of thirty-five thousand dol- 
lars, and is now valued at over two hundred thou- 
sand dollars. In like manner the American Bap- 
tist missionaries have gained an ownership or 
control, in the city of Puebla, of the old Palace 
of the Inquisition; and, in the city of Mexico, 
the former enormous Palace of the Inquisition 
is now a medical college ; while the Plaza dc San 
Domingo, which adjoins and fronts the Church of 
San Domingo, and where the auto-da-fc was once 
held, is now used as a market-place. A former 
magnificent old convent, to some extent recon- 
structed and repaired, also affords quarters to the 
National Library, which in turn is largely made up 
of spoils gathered from the libraries of the relig- 



PROTESTANTISM IN MEXICO. 89 

ious "orders" and houses.^ The national Govern- 
ment, however, does not appear to have derived 
any great fiscal advantage from the confiscation of 
the Church property, or to have availed itself of 
the resources which thus came to it for effecting 
any marked reduction of the national debt. Good 
Catholics would not buy " God's property " and 
take titles from the state ; and so large tracts of 
land and blocks of city buildings passed, at a very 
low figure, into the possession of those who were 
indifferent to the Church, and had command of 
ready money ; and in this way individuals, rather 
than the state and the great body of the people, 
have been benefited. > 

Note. — An official report by the Mexican Government in 1879 thus 
reviews the progress of foreign (Protestant) missions in Mexico, and 
constitutes in itself a striking evidence of the marvelous change which 
has taken place in Mexico within the last quarter of a century in re- 
spect to religious belief and toleration. It says : " The Mexican nation 
was for a long time dominated by the Roman Catholic clergy, which 
came to establish the most absolute fanaticism, and the most complete 
intolerance. Not only was the exercise of any other religion save that 
of the apostolic Roman Catholic faith not permitted, but for a long 
time the Inquisition prevailed, with all its horrors, and all those not 
professing the Roman Catholic faith were considered as men without 
principle or morality. The exercise of any other worship, and, still 
more, the propagation of any other religion except the Roman Catho- 
lic, would have occasioned in Mexico, up to a little more than twenty 
years ago, the death of any one attempting to undertake such an enter- 
prise ; inasmuch as it was considered an act meritorious in the eyes of 
the Divinity, the extermination of those who pretended to make prose- 
lytes in pro of any other religion. Although the conquests obtained 
through the war of reform have effected a notable change in intelli- 



90 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



gcncc and public sentiment in this respect, the fact can not be ignored 
that fanaticism is not yet extinguished, and particularly in the towns 
distant from the centers of intelligence, and in which the indigenous 
clement predominates." 

" Notwithstanding this, since the year iS6i, missionaries of various 
Protestant religions have come to establish their worship, and carry on 
their propaganda, not only in the capital of the republic and in its 
principal cities, where there were also great elements in favor of fanati- 
cism, but in towns of the indigenous population, in the country, and in 
the very centers where fanaticism has had the greatest dominion for a 
long time, and where it still exists, although it has lost much of its old 
power. 

" These missionaries have established these churches publicly, they 
have founded their religious worship, they have distributed their Bibles 
and other books, they have preached their doctrines in public, opened 
their primary schools and seminaries, established their orphanages, cir- 
culated their periodicals and publications, and have, relatively, and in 
view of the difficulties which they have had to struggle with, good suc- 
cess, and with scarcely any danger." 

" There are no exact data, in this department, of the progress made 
in the icpublic by those missions, and only in an accidental manner 
has it been known what two of them have attained up to this time. 
The] first, called the Mexican Branch of the Church Catholic of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, the existence of which commenced in iSCr^ 
already counts upon a church which serves it as a cathedral in the 
ancient temple of San Francisco, with the churches of San Jose dc 
Gracia and San Antonio Abad ; it has fifty congregations scattered in 
different parts of the republic ; orphanages and schools, in which it is 
sustaining and educating more than five hundred children ; theological 
seminaries, in which young men are being educated for the ministry ; 
a weekly periodical entitled ' La Vcrdad ' (' The Truth '), which is its 
organ, and counts upon more than three thousand active members. It 
must be borne in mind that this church is only one of those that work in 
that sense, and that, from the circumstance of having the character of 
Mexican, it has not counted upon so decided and efficacious a protec- 
tion of foreign elements as the other churches which belong to different 
Protestant denominations, established in the United States and in Eng- 
land, which, through the desire of propagating their faith in every coun- 
tr)', give themselves to expenses and efforts which they would not do 
in behalf of a new denomination having the character of Mexican." 



PROTESTANT MISSIONS. 



91 



" The second Protestant communion, of which there are data, is the 
Methodist Episcopal, founded in Mexico by Dr. William Butler, in 
1S73. It has extended its propaganda in the cities of Mexico, Puebla, 
Guanajuato, Orizaba, Cordoba, Pachuca, Real del Monte, and Ame- 
cameca, where it has twenty-one congregations, and employs thirty-three 
missionaries, nineteen of whom arc foreigners. It sustains a theological 
seminary, various schools, attended by 518 children of both sexes, and 
two orphanages. It publishes two periodicals, with a circulation of 
3,200 copies, and published, in the year 1878, 830,000 pages of religious 
literature. It possesses values to the amount of $75,400, and its ex- 
penses for the present year are calculated at $37,000. The members of 
this communion number 2,350. Besides the churches of Jesus and the 
Methodist Episcopal, other Protestant communities have been estab- 
lishing themselves since 1861, which are now ramified in towns of the 
states of Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Yucatan, Oaxaca, 
Jalisco, and Mexico, and are denominated Presbyterian, Baptist, South- 
ern Presbyterian Synod, Mexican Mission of Friends (Quakei-s), South- 
ern Methodist Mission, Congregationalist, Independent, and Presby- 
terian Refomied, respecting which there are not sufficient data to note 
with accuracy their present condition." — " Report of the Secretary of 
Finance of the United States of Mexico," January, 1879. 



CHAPTER V. 

Divisions of the population of Mexico — The national language and 
its commercial drawbacks — Extreme ignorance and poverty of 
the masses — Tortillas and frijoles — Responsibility of the Church 
for the existing condition of the people — Educational efforts and 
awakening in Mexico — Government schools, secular and military 
— Government and social forces of Mexico — What constitutes 
public opinion in Mexico? — Character of the present Executive — 
Newspaper press of Mexico. 

Having thus briefly glanced at .the physical 
condition and poHtical and social experiences of 
Mexico, we are now prepared to discuss the eco- 
nomic condition of tlie country, its prospect for 
industrial development, and its possible commer- 
cial importance and future trade relations with the 
United States. 

POPUL.\TION. 

The element of first importance, and therefore 
the one entitled to first consideration in endeavor- 
ing to forecast the future of Mexico, is undoubt- 
edl}' its population ; the object alike for improve- 
ment, and llic primary instrumentality by which 
any great improvement in the condition of the 



POPULATION 93 

country can be effected. Whatever may be its ag- 
gregate — ten or twelve millions — it is generally 
acrreed that about one third of the whole number 
are pure Indians, the descendants of the proprie- 
tors of the soil at the time of its conquest by the 
Spaniards; a people yet living in a great degree 
by themselves, though freely mingling in the streets 
and public places with the other races, and speak- 
ing, it is said, about one hundred and twenty dif- 
ferent languages or dialects. Next, one half of the 
whole population are of mixed blood — the mestizos 
— of whose origin nothing, in general, can be posi- 
tively affirmed, further than that their maternal an- 
cestors were* Indian women, and their fathers de- 
scendants of the Caucasian stock. They constitute 
the dominant race of the Mexico of to-day — the 
ranqheros, farmers, muleteers, servants, and sol- 
diers — the only native foundation on which it would 
seem that any improved structure of humanity can 
be reared. Where the infusion of white blood has 
been large, the mestizos are often represented by 
men of fine ability, who take naturally to the pro- 
fession of arms and the law, and distinguish them- 
selves. But, on the other hand, no small proportion 
of this race — the so-called Icperos — are acknowl- 
edged by the Mexicans themselves to be among the 
lowest and vilest specimens of humanity in exist- 
ence ; a class exhibiting every vice, with hardly 



94 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



the possession of a single virtue. The remaining 
sixth of the population of Mexico are Europeans 
by birth or their immediate descendants, the Span- 
ish element predominating. The national language 
also is Spanish — a language not well fitted for the 
uses and progress of a commercial nation ; and 
which will inevitably constitute a very serious ob- 
stacle in the way of indoctrinating the Mexican 
people with the ideas and methods of overcoming 
obstacles and doing things which characterize their 
great Anglo-Saxon neighbors. It should also be 
borne in mind that a language is one of the most 
difficult things to supplant in the life of a nation 
through a foreign influence. The Norman con- 
quest of England, although it modified the Saxon 
language, could not substitute French ; neither 
could the Moors make Arabic the language of 
Spain, although they held possession of a great 
part of the country lor a period of more than seven 
centuries. It seems certain, therefore, that Spanish 
will continue to be the dominant language of Mexi- 
co until the present population is outnumbered by 
the Americans — a result which may occur before a 
very long time in the northern States of Mexico, 
where the population at present is very thin, but 
which is certainly a very far-off contingency in the 
case of Central Mexico. 

Of the present population of Mexico, probably 



DEGRADATION OF THE COMMON PEOPLE. 



95 



three quarters, and possibly a larger proportion — 
for in respect to this matter there is no certain in- 
formation — can not read or write, possess little or 
no property, and have no intelligent ideas about 
civil as contradistinguished from military authori- 
ty, of political liberty, or of constitutional govern- 
ment. 

The mass of all those engaged in the prosecu- 
tion of agriculture and the performance of other 
manual labor are also divided into classes, as sepa- 
rate and distinct from each other as it is possible 
to imagine a people to be who occupy a common 
country and acknowledge the same government, 
and in this respect they greatly resemble the na- 
tives of British India. 

It is difficult, in fact, to express in words, to 
those who have not had an opportunity of judging 
for themselves, the degraded condition of the mass 
of the laboring-classes of Mexico. The veil of the 
picturesque, which often suffices to soften the hard 
lines of human existence, can not here hide the ug- 
liness and even hideousness of the picture which 
humanity exhibits in its material coarseness, and 
intellectual, or spiritual poverty. / The late consul- 
general Strother, who, as a citizen of one of our 
former slave - holding States, is well qualified to 
judge, expresses the opinion, in a late official re- 
port (1885), that the scale of living of the laboring- 
5 



96 A STUDY OF MEXICO, 

classes of Mexico " is decidedly inferior in comfort 
and neatness to that of the negroes of the Southern 
(United) States when in a state of slavery. Their 
dwellings in the cities are generally wanting in all 
the requirements of health and comfort — mostly 
rooms on the ground-floor, without proper light or 
ventilation ; often with but a single opening (that 
for entrance), dirt floors, and no drainage. In the 
suburbs and in the country, the dwellings in the 
cold regions are adobe, and in the temperate or 
warm regions mere huts of cane, or of stakes wat- 
tled with twigs, and roofed with corn-stalks, plan- 
tain-leaves, or brush. IIJCIp such houses of the com- 
mon people there is rarely anything answering to 
the civilized idea of a bed, the occupants sleeping 
on a mat, skin, or blanket on the dirt floor. There 
are no chairs, tables, fireplace, or chimney ; few or 
no changes of raiment ; no washing apparatus or 
soap, and in fact no furniture whatever, except a 
flat stone with a stone roller to grind their corn, 
and a variety of earthen vessels to hold their food 
and drink, and for cooking (which last is generally 
performed over a small fire, within a circle of 
stones outside, and in front, of the main entrance 
to the dwelling). The principal food of all these 
people is Indian corn, in the form of the so-called 
tortilla, which is prepared by placing a quantity of 
corn in a jar of hot water and lime (when it can be 



FOOD OF THE PEOPLE. 



97 



got) to soak overnight ; the use of the lime being 
to soften the corn. When it is desired to use it, 
the grain is taken out and ground by hand on the 
stone and by the roller before mentioned, into a 
kind of paste, and then slightly dried or baked on an 
earthen tray or pan over a small fire. Everybody 
in Mexico is said to eat tortillas, and their prepara- 
tion, which is always assigned to the women, seems 
to employ their whole time, " to the exclusion of 
any care of the dwelling, their children, or them- 
selves." , Foreigners, especially Americans, find 
them detestable. Another standard article of Mexi- 
can diet is boiled beans {frijoles). Meat is rarely 
used by the laborers, but, when it is obtainable, 
every part of the animal is eaten. Peppers, both 
green and red, mixed with the corn-meal or beans, 
are regarded as almost indispensable for every 
meal, and, when condensed by cooking, are de- 
scribed by one, who obviously speaks from expe- 
rience, as forming " a red-hot mixture whose savage 
intensity is almost inconceivable to an American. 
... A child of six or seven years old will eat more 
of this at a meal than most adult Americans could 
in a week — eating it, too, without meat or grease 
of any kind ; merely folding up the tortilla of wheat 
or corn-meal, dipping up a spoonful of the terrible 
compound with it, and hastily biting off the end, 
for fear some of the precious stuff should escape. 



98 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



Should one be fortunate enough to have anything 
else to eat, these tortillas serve as plates, after which 
service the plates are eaten." 

With all this, the agricultural laborers of Mexi- 
co, both Indians and mixed bloods, are almost uni- 
versally spoken of as an industrious, easily managed, 
and contented people. By reason of the general 
mildness of the climate, the necessary requirements 
for living are fewer than among people i"hhabiting 
the temperate and more northern latitudes, and 
consequently poverty with them does not imply 
extreme suffering from either cold or starvation. 
When their simple wants are satisfied, money with 
them has little value, and quickly finds its way into 
the pockets of the almost omnipresent pulque or 
" lottery-ticket " sellers, or the priest. " If they 
are too ready to take a hand against the Govern- 
ment at the call of some discontented leader, it is 
not because they are Indian or Mexican, but be- 
cause they are poor and ignorant." 

Considering the great achievements of Juarez, 
and the precedent which his success in administra- 
tion established, it is curious to note how rarely 
one sees faces of the Indian type in any impor- 
tant or public positions. The rank and file of the 
army seem to be unmistakably Indian, or of evident 
Indian descent, while the officers, almost without 
an exception, are white. The bands have white 



THE MEXICAN INDIANS. 



99 



leaders, though the sweetest players are under- 
stood to be pure Indians ; and so also in the case 
of the police — the force is mainly Indian, while the 
superintendent and his staff are likely to be white. 
One also, it is said, rarely sees faces tinged with 
Indian blood among members of the Mexican Con- 
gress, the clergy, the teachers, the superintendents 
of the haciendas, or the students of the universi- 
ties. At the same time it is understood that Indian 
blood is no bar to entrance into good society, or 
to office, if the person is otherwise qualified ; and 
the Indian is not anywhere abused in Mexico, or 
ejected from the lands which his ancestors have 
tilled from time immemorial, as has often been the 
case in the United States. The majority of the 
Mexican Indians have lost all traces of their once 
wild life, and have recognized that their living 
must now be gained by work, even if it be but 
rude and imperfect ; and, except in the case of the 
Apaches and Yaquis and of some of the tribes of 
Southern Mexico, have long since exchanged the 
blanket for the serape, the bow for the ox-goad, and 
scalp-lifting for the monte-i3b\e, the cock-pit, or the 
bull-ring. (^Another interesting feature of the life 
of the independent or free Indians in Mexico — that 
is, Indians not attached to any of the great estates 
— is, that it is eminently communistic; and more 
characteristic of the type of the agricultural village 



lOO A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

communities of the early ages, on the Eastern Con- 
tinent, than is exhibited by the more northern 
tribes of North America. Thus, the inhabitants of 
each village — living in adobe- or cane-built huts — 
own and cultivate all the lands under their control, 
in common with all the other members of the tribe 
or community, " divide the proceeds according to 
laws which antedate the Spanish conquest, and use 
the same primitive tools and methods of irrigation 
that were used by their ancestors in the days of 
the Montezumas." J 

One noticeable peculiarity of the Mexican la- 
borer is the strength of his local attachments, and 
it is in rare instances only that he voluntarily emi- 
grates from the place of his nativity. This circum- 
stance found a curious illustration in the experi- 
ence of the recent railroad constructions in Mexico, 
where the builders found that they could rely only 
upon the labor in the immediate neighborhood of 
their line of construction ; and that, gcnerall}-, nei- 
ther money nor persuasion would induce any great 
numbers of these people to follow their work at a 
distance from their native fields and villages. In 
those instances where temporary emigration was 
effected, the laborers insisted on carrying their 
families with them. The Government also recog- 
nizes to a certain extent this peculiarity in their 
army movements ; and, whenever a company or 



POPULAR EDUCATION. iqi 

regiment moves, the number of women — wives of 
the soldiers — accompanying seems almost absurdly 
numerous. They, however, represent, and to some 
extent supply, the place of the army commissariat. 

EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS AND AWAKENING IN MEXICO. 

It is, however, gratifying to be able to state, 
that at last the leading men of Mexico have come 
to recognize the importance of popular education ; 
and it is safe to say that more good, practical work 
has been done in this direction within the last ten 
years than in all of the preceding three hundred 
and fifty. At all of the important centers of popula- 
tion, free schools, under the auspices of the national 
Government, and free from all Church supervision, 
are reported as established ; while the Catholic 
Church itself, stimulated, as it were, by its misfort- 
unes, and apparently unwilling to longer rest un- 
der the imputation of having neglected education, 
is also giving much attention to the subject ; and is 
said to be acting upon the principle of immediately 
establishing two schools wherever, in a given lo- 
cality, the Government, or any of the Protestant 
denominations, establish one. In several of the 
national free schools visited by the author, the 
scholars, mainly girls, appeared bright and intelli- 
gent, the teachers (females) competent, and the 



102 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

text-books modern. The language of instruction 
was, of course, Spanish, but a greater desire than 
ever before to learn English is reported, and it is 
now (contrary to former custom) generally taught 
in preference to French. Industrial schools, to 
which boys are appointed from different sections 
of the country, analogous to the system of appoint- 
ments in the United States for West Point and An- 
napolis, have also been established by the Govern- 
ment. One of the most interesting of these, and 
for the promotion of which the " Mexican Central 
Railroad " corporation have co-operated, exists at 
Guadalupe, about five miles from the city of Zaca- 
tecas. Here, in a large and well-preserved convent 
structure, confiscated by the Government and ap- 
propriated for school purposes, some two or three 
hundred Mexican boys are gathered, and practi- 
cally taught the arts of spinning and weaving, print- 
ing, carpentering, instrumental music, leather-work, 
and various other handicrafts ; while, in close con- 
tiguity, and in striking contrast with the poverty 
of the surrounding country, the ecclesiastical au- 
thorities are expending a large amount of money — 
the proceeds of a legacy of a rich Mexican mine- 
proprietor — in reconstructing and decorating in a 
most elaborate manner the church, which was for- 
merly a part of the convent, and which has been 
left in Ihcir possession. 



THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 



103 



The Federal Government maintains a well-or- 
ganized National School of Agriculture, and has 
purchased and distributed during recent years large 
quantities of grape-cuttings of the finest varieties, 
and also graftings and seeds of the finest fruit-trees 
and plants obtainable in Mexico and in foreign 
countries. There are also national schools, at the 
capital, of medicine, law, and engineering ; a Con- 
servatory of Music, an Academy of Fine Arts, a 
National Museum, and a National Library ; together 
with institutions for the blind, deaf and dumb, the 
insane, for the reformation of young criminals, and 
such other systematic charities as are common in 
enlightened communities. Most of these institu- 
tions are located in old and spacious ecclesiastical 
edifices which have been " nationalized " ; and the 
means for their support seem to be always pro- 
vided, although the Mexican treasury is rarely or 
never in a flourishing condition. At the same time 
it is almost certain that all these laudable efforts on 
the part of the Government to promote education 
and culture, have thus far worked down and affected 
to a very slight extent the great mass of the people. 
But it is, nevertheless, a beginning. 

As the stability, however, of any form of govern- 
ment and the maintenance of domestic tranquillity 
with such a population as exists in Mexico are ob- 
viously contingent on the maintenance of a strong, 



I04 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



wcll-organizcd, and disciplined army, the first care 
of the central Government is naturally to promote 
military rather than secular education ; and, ac- 
cordingly, the National Military School, located at 
Chapultepec, and modeled after the best military 
schools of Europe, is in the highest state of effi- 
ciency. The S3'stem of instruction and the text- 
books used are French ; and the pcrsojincl of the 
school, both officers and cadets, will compare favor- 
ably with anything that can be seen at West Point. 
The army maintained by Mexico on a peace basis 
is forty-five thousand three hundred and twenty- 
three, or nearly double that of the United States ; 
and, on a war -footing, was officially reported in 
1883 as embracing an effective fighting force of 
one hundred and sixty thousand nine hundred and 
sixty-three. That the Mexican people possess all 
the physical qualities essential for the making of 
good soldiers can not also be questioned. At the 
same time, it is manifest that, upon the patriotism 
and intelligence of the officers in command of 
the army, the immediate future and prosperity of 
Mexico are dependent. The single fact, however, 
that the present Government and the most intel- 
ligent and influential people of Mexico have recog- 
nized the necessity of educating the masses of the 
people, and that probably the best that can be done 
under existing circumstances is being done, cer- 



GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO. 105 

tainly constitutes the most hopeful and encour- 
aging augury for the future of the republic. 



THE GOVERNMENT AND SOCIAL FORCES OF MEXICO. 

As might be expected from the existing condi- 
tions, the Government of Mexico — both Federal 
and State — although nominally constitutional and 
democratic, is not, and from the very nature of 
things can not be, other than personal, and is often 
in the highest degree arbitrary and despotic ; in 
short, a military despotism under the form of a 
republic. For example, under date of February 
15, 1886, the telegraph reports that the people of 
Coahuila are rejoicing over the fact that, after a 
term of a year and a half of military rule, the civil 
authorities are to resume control of the local gov- 
ernment ; but to this is added the following signifi- 
cant statement : " The policy of the civil govern- 
ment, however, will probably be identical with that 
pursued by the military, as the Governor-elect is 
a strong supporter of the Administration, and will 
accede to all the demands of the Federal Govern- 
ment." 

/ No such thing as a popular assemblage, to dis- 
cuss public questions of any kind, ever takes place 
in Mexico ; and when, in the fall of 1884, a young 
member of the national Congress from Vera Cruz 



106 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

— Diaz Miron — ventured to oppose a scandalous 
proposition of the then President, Gonzales, for the 
readjustment of the claims of the English holders 
of the national bonds, he felt it necessary to preface 
his speech on the floor of the House of Represent- 
atives with words to the effect that he fully rec- 
ognized that, in opposing the Administration, he 
probably forfeited all chance for future political 
preferment, even if he did not at once endanger 
his personal freedom.) And such, probably, would 
have been to him the result, had not the students 
of the city of Mexico made the cause of Miron 
their own, and, by organizing and assuming the 
aggressive, forced the Government to quietly aban- 
don its position. 

The yielding of the Government was, however, 
but temporary ; for, in the elections for a new 
Congress during the present year (1886), it has so 
ordered matters as to effectually prevent all antag- 
onism to its measures — the Opposition of the last 
Congress, led by Miron and his associates, and 
which was regarded by many as so promising for 
a larger measure of independence and intelligence 
in Mexican legislation and politics, not having been 
able, it is understood, to elect a single member. 

The present Constitution of Mexico dates back 
to 1857, with modifications down to 1883. The 
Mexican States are independent, in the same man- 



THE MEXICAN CONGRESS. 



107 



ner as are those of the United States, but seem to 
be less under the control of the central Federal 
Government, and the Federal Supreme Court, than 
in the latter country. There is little interest 
among the people of the Mexican States in nation- 
al affairs, and consequentl}'' little of national spirit ; 
a result naturally to be expected when one re- 
calls that a large proportion of the population are 
Indians, who are wholly uneducated, have no con- 
ception of what their government is apart from 
military rule, and do not in the least concern 
themselves about its details. The leaders in the 
States are also largely military men, and experi- 
ence in the past has shown that they are rarely re- 
strained by sentiments of pride or patriotism from 
using their influence for their own personal ad- 
vantage, and with little regard for the public wel- 
fare. The Mexican Federal Government, like that 
of the United States also, is composed of three de- 
partments — the legislative, executive, and judicial. 
Congress consists of a Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives, There are about two hundred and 
thirty members of the latter body, elected for two 
years, and apportioned at the rate of one mem- 
ber for forty thousand inhabitants. The Sen- 
ate comprises fifty-six members, two from each 
State. Congressmen and senators are paid three 
thousand dollars a year. A president of the Sen- 



I08 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

ate is elected each month ; and that officer, in case 
of a vacancy in the presidency, succeeds tempo- 
rarily to the executive office. The law-making 
body meets annually from April ist to May 30th, 
and from September i6th to December i6th. In 
addition to this there is a permanent legislative 
committee of both branches, having power to act 
in all emergencies, and to sit during the recess 
of Congress. The President is not chosen directly 
by the people, but by electors ; holds office for 
four years, and can not remain in power for two 
successive terms ; and this last provision is said 
to be almost the only one of the Mexican Con- 
stitution that is rigidly observed. 

I Public opinion in Mexico has been defined to 
be, " the opinion entertained by the President " ; 
and from the most favorable point of view can not 
mean anything more than the opinions of the large 
landed proprietors, the professions, the teachers, 
the students, and the army officers, comprising 
in all not more than from twenty-five to thirty 
thousand of the whole population. And it is un- 
derstood that less than this number of votes were 
cast at the last presidential election, although the 
Constitution of Mexico gives to every adult male 
citizen of the republic the right to vote at elec- 
tions and to hold office. Popular election in 
Mexico is, therefore, little more than a farce^ and 



PUBLIC OPINION IN MEXICO. 



109 



the situation affords another striking illustration 
of a fact which is recognized everywhere by the 
student of politics, that an uneducated people will 
not avail themselves of the right to vote as a 
matter of course, or recognize any sense of duty 
or responsibility as incumbent upon them as citi- 
zens. Such a condition of affairs obviously consti- 
tutes in itself a perpetual menace of domestic 
tranquillity : for, with no census or registration of 
voters, no scrutiny of the ballot-box except by 
the party in power ; no public meetings or public 
political discussions ; and no circulation of news- 
papers among the masses, no peacefully organized 
political opposition has a chance to exist. Such 
opposition as does manifest itself is, therefore, 
personal and never a matter of principles. The 
central Government for the time being nominates 
and counts in what candidates it pleases ; and, if 
any one feels dissatisfied or oppressed, there is ab- 
solutely no redress to be obtained except through 
rebellion. Such has been the political experience 
of the Republic of Mexico heretofore ; and al- 
though the recent construction of railways, by fa- 
cilitating the transportation of troops, has strength- 
ened the central Government, there is no reason 
to suppose that what has happened in the past 
will not continue to happen until the first essen- 
tial of a free government — namely, free and intelli- 



no A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

gent sulTragc on the part of the masses — is estab- 
lished in the country ; and the day for the con- 
summation of such a result is ver}- far distant. 

The present President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, 
is undoubtedly one of the ablest men who have 
ever filled the office of its chief executive ; al- 
though his elevation to power was effected in the 
first instance through military support, and the 
arbitrary and violent overthrow of the regular con- 
stituted authorities. Thus, having distinguished 
himself in the army, and as general-in-chief of the 
forces that wrested the capital from Maximilian 
in 1866, he offered himself as a candidate for the 
presidency in 187 1. In the following election, only 
12,361 votes were cast; of which Juarez received 
5,837, Diaz 3,555, and Lerdo de Tejada, who was 
then Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, 2,874, 
with ninety-five votes recorded as scattering. Diaz 
refused to accept the result, on the ground that 
the re-election of a President was not constitu- 
tional, issued a manifesto, and repudiated the ex- 
isting authorities. A bloody war, lasting about a 
year, ensued, in which Diaz and his forces were 
utterly routed. Diaz was, however, amnestied, 
kindly received at the capital, and lived peace- 
fully until 1876, when he rebelled against the gov- 
ernment of Lerdo, a scholarly and accomplished 
man, but deficient in militarv talent, who had sue- 



PRESIDENT DIAZ AND HIS CABINET, \ 1 1 

ceeded to the presidency on the death of Juarez ; 
and, after a series of hazardous adventures and bold 
exploits, collected a force sufficient to defeat Ler- 
do (who fled the country when his fortunes were 
by no means desperate), captured the capital, as- 
sumed the presidency, and subsequently obtained a 
ratification of his proceedings by a nominally popu- 
lar election. Although he is understood to have 
come into the possession of large wealth and great 
estates (in Oaxaca) since his first elevation to the 
office of chief executive, he is now believed to 
have the interests of his country supremely at 
heart, has appreciated the necessity and favored 
all efforts for establishing and extending popular 
education, and is undoubtedly disposed to be as 
liberal and progressive as the difficult conditions 
and influences by which he is surrounded will per- 
mit. 

It is not, furthermore, to be denied that many 
of the men associated with the present or recent 
Administrations of Mexico are of very high char- 
acter and fine abilities. Thus the present Minister 
of Foreign Affairs — Ignacio Mariscal — is a man of 
great ability, a finished diplomat, and who, in addi- 
tion to conducting his department with success un- 
der several Administrations, has also served as min- 
ister to England. Another dominant force in the 
government is Manuel Romerio Rubio, the father- 



112 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

in-law of the President, who is Minister of the Inte- 
rior, and is an eminent lawyer, a polished states- 
man, and a patriot ; while the recent representa- 
tive of Mexico in the United States, Seiior Zama- 
cona, and the present minister, Senor Romero, 
are the peers of the representatives of any of the 
governments of the Old World. 

Although there are plenty of newspapers in 
Mexico — some sixteen "dailies" in the city of 
Mexico alone — they have, as might be expected, 
but comparatively few readers, and apparently ex- 
ist for some other purpose than that of reporting 
the "news." Only one journal in the countrv — " El 
Monitor Republicano " — a daily published in the 
city of Mexico, and representing the Liberal Op- 
position, claims a circulation as great as thirty-five 
hundred ; and probably next to this in circulation 
(twenty-five hundred reported) is the Church pa- 
per " El Tiempo," which is bitter alike against the 
Americans and all their improvements, not except- 
ing even their railroads. Of all the other daily 
papers, it is doubtful whether their average circu- 
lation ever reaches as large a figure as eight hun- 
dred. Of the weekly papers of the capital — some 
thirty in number — one of the most recent, enterpris- 
ing, successful, and influential, is the " Mexican Fi- 
nancier," which is printed in parallel columns of 
Spanish and English ; and the publisher and editor of 



THE PRESS IN MEXICO. 



113 



which are graduates respectively of the Springfield 
(Massachusetts) " Republican " and Boston " Her- 
ald." No paper discusses the many and vexatious 
problems of the Mexican state and its people with 
greater intelligence ; none has a larger measure of 
the confidence of the Government; and no agency 
in Mexico is likely to be more influential in the 
future in promoting the development and pros- 
perity of the country. 

The press of Mexico can hardly be said to be 
free : inasmuch as, when it says anything which the 
Government assumes to be calculated to excite se- 
dition, the authorities summarily arrest the editor 
and send him to prison ; taking care, however, in 
all such proceedings, to scrupulously observe what 
has been enacted to be law. Thus the editor-in- 
chief of " El Monitor Republicano " has recently 
(1885) served out a sentence of seven months in the 
common penitentiary, for his criticisms upon the 
Government. 

Finally, what Mexico is to-day, socially and po- 
litically, is the natural and legitimate sequence, and 
exactly what might have been expected from the 
artificial conditions which for more than three cent- 
uries have been forced upon her ; and history has 
never afforded such a striking, instructive, and piti- 
ful illustration of the effect upon a country and a 
people, of long-continued absolutism and tyranny 



114 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



in respect to both government and religion. It is 
true that Spain, if called to plead at the bar of 
public opinion, might point to her own situation 
and decadence as in the nature of judgment con- 
fessed and punishment awarded. But what has the 
Church, in whose hands for so man}- years was ex- 
clusively vested the matter of education, and which 
lacked nothing in the way of power and oppor- 
tunity, to say to the appalling depths of ignorance 
in which she has left the Mexican people ; an igno- 
rance not confined to an almost entire lack of ac- 
quaintance with the simplest elements of scholastic 
learning — reading, writing, and the rules of com- 
mon arithmetic — but even with the commonest tools 
and mechanical appliances of production and civili- 
zation ? But, wherever may be the responsibiUty 
for such a condition of things, the conclusion seems 
irresistible that, against the moral inertia of such 
an appalling mass of ignorance, the advancing 
waves of any higher civilization are likely to dash 
for a long time without making any serious im- 
pression. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Occupations of the people of Mexico — Drawbacks to the pursuits of 
agriculture — Land-titles in Mexico — Mining laws — Scant agri- 
cultural resources of Northern Mexico — Origin and original 
home of the " cow-boy " — Resources of the Tierras Calientes — 
Agriculture on the plateau of Mexico — Deficiency of roads and 
methods of transportation — Comparative agricultural production 
of the United States and Mexico. 

OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO. 

(Agriailture. — Although the main business of the 
country is agriculture, this branch of industry is 
carried on under exceptionally disadvantageous cir- 
cumstances. 

One of its greatest drawbacks is, that the whole 
country is divided up into immense haciendas, or 
landed estates, small farms being rarely known ; 
and, out of a population of ten million or more, 
the title to the soil (apart from the lands held by 
the Indian communities) is said to vest in not more 
than live or six thousand persons. Some of these 
estates comprise square leagues instead of square 
acres in extent, and are said to have irrigating 
ditches from forty to fifty miles in length. Most 



Il6 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

of the land of such estates is uncultivated, and the 
water is wasted upon the remainder in the most 
reckless manner. The titles by which such proper- 
ties are held are exceedingly varied, and probably 
to a considerable extent uncertain. Some origi- 
nated with the Spanish crown, through its vice- 
roys, and have been handed down from generation 
to generation ; some came from Mexico, through 
its governors or political chiefs ; while, over a not 
inconsiderable part of all the good land of the coun- 
try, the titles of the Church, although not recog- 
nized by the Government, are still, to a certain 
extent, respected. As agricultural land generally 
upon the Mexican plateau, has little or no value 
apart from the use and control of water, it has 
come to pass that in various communities the title 
to land is vested in the water-right ; and a small 
land-owner or farmer, instead of holding deeds for 
the land he occupies, owns a right to so many min- 
utes, hours, or days of water per month — that is, he 
is entitled to draw from the main irrigation ditch, 
which skirts or runs through his land, water for so 
long a time each month, and to cultivate so much 
land as this water will irrigate. These rights to 
water, which arc therefore equivalent to titles to 
land, are, like land-titles, inheritable, and subject to 
the laws of descent ; and so scattered sometimes 
have become the heirs to such rights, that the re- 



TENURE OF REAL ESTATE. ny 

suit, very curiously, is often the loss of any power 
of sale by those actually remaining in possession. 
Thus, in Northern Mexico,, according to Consul 
Sutton, there are persons whose only claim to use 
the general grazing -lands belonging to the com- 
munity, and to cut wood upon the same, is the 
ownership of ten seconds of water per month, and 
yet even this small right entitles them to hold 
for their exclusive use such land as they may have 
under fence, and to live on community land so long 
as they can build themselves a house and make 
their ten seconds of water answer their purpose. 
In such communities agriculture is paralyzed, and, 
as the only person affected by this pernicious sys- 
tem is the small farmer, the very foundation of pro- 
gressive cultivation of land is undermined wherever 
it exists. ) 

C Added to all this, there is a marked indisposi- 
tion on the part of the large owners of real estate 
in Mexico to divest themselves of such property ; 
and this for various reasons. Thus, in the here- 
tofore almost permanently revolutionary condition 
of the country, the tenure of movable or personal 
property was subject to embarrassments from 
which real estate, or immovable property, was ex- 
empt. Under the system of taxation which has 
long prevailed in Mexico, land also is very lightly 
burdened. And, finally, from what is probably an 



Il8 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

inherited tradition from Old Spain, the wealthy 
Mexican seems to be prejudiced against invest 
ing in co-operative (stock) or financial enterprises 
— the railways, banks, and mines, in both Old 
Spain and Mexico, for example, being to-day main- 
ly owned and controlled by English or other for- 
eign capitalists. I Under such circumstances, there 
is no influx of immigrants into Mexico with a view 
to agriculture, and settlements, such as spring up 
and flourish in the United States almost contem- 
poraneously with the construction of the " land- 
grant " and other railroads, are unknown, and are 
not at present to be expected ; all of which clearly 
works to the great disadvantage of all Mexican 
railway enterprise and construction. It is also 
interesting to note, in connection with this subject, 
that it is the immobility and uncertainty of these 
same old Spanish or Mexican land-grants, which 
cover a vast portion of New Mexico, that consti- 
tute at present the greatest obstacle in the way 
of the growth and development of that Terri- 
tory. 

Statutes offering great inducements for perma. 
ncnt immigration — such as a bonus to each immi- 
grant, the right to purchase public lands at moder- 
ate prices and on long terms, the right to naturali- 
zation and citizenship, and the like — were enacted 
by the Mexican Congress as far Ixick as 1875, but 



MEXICAN LAND LA WS. 



119 



as yet do not appear to have been productive of 
any marked results. 

COn the other hand, the Mexican land laws dis- 
criminate very rigorously against the acquirement 
of land by foreigners who do not propose to be- 
come Mexican citizens, and seem to be especially 
framed to prevent any encroachments on the part 
of the United States. Thus, no foreigner who is a 
citizen of any country adjoining Mexico may, with- 
out previous permission of the President of the 
Republic, acquire real estate in any of the border 
States, within twenty leagues (sixty miles) of the 
frontier ; but such permission has of late been 
freely given to citizens of the United States for 
the acquirement of ranching property on the north- 
ern frontier. The ownership of real estate by a 
foreigner in either country or city, within fifteen 
miles of the coast, is, however, absolutely forbid- 
den, by a provision of the Mexican Constitution. 
By the Constitution of Mexico also, a foreigner 
who purchases any real estate in that country, 
without declaring that he retains his nationality, 
becomes a citizen of Mexico ; and it is difficult to 
see how under such conditions he could properly 
invoke any protection from the country of his 
prior citizenship, in case he considered his rights 
in Mexico to be invaded.J 

The laws regulating mining property in Mexico 
6 



120 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

are very peculiar. (^Xo one in Mexico, be he na- 
tive or foreigner, can own a mine absolutely, or 
in fee, no matter what he may pay for it. He 
may hold it indefinitely, so long as he works it; 
but under an old Spanish law, promulgated as far 
back as 1783, and still recognized, if he fails "to 
work it for four consecutive months, with four 
operatives, regularly employed, and occupied in 
some interior or exterior w-ork of real utility and 
advantage," the title is forfeited and reverts to the 
state ; and the mine may be " denounced," and 
shall belong, under the same conditions, " to the 
denouncer who proves its dcserticMi." The de- 
nouncer, to keep the property, must, however, at 
once take possession and begin the prescribed 
work within a period of sixty days. Any person 
also may denounce a mine, no matter upon whose 
land it may be found ; and also have the right to 
a ready access to it. This practice has one great 
advantage over the American mining S3'stem ; and 
that is, that litigation about original titles and 
conflicting claims to mining property are com- 
paratively rare in MexicoJ 

^On \\\c plateau of Mexico, where nine tenths of 
its present population live, there is undoubtedly 
much good land ; but the great drawback to this 
whole region, as already pointed out, is its lack 
of water. During the rainy season, which com- 



DRYNESS OF CLIMATE. 121 

mences in June and lasts about four months, there 
is a plentiful rainfall for Central and Southern 
Mexico ; but in Northern Mexico the rainfall, for 
successive years, is not unfrequently so deficient 
as to occasion large losses, both in respect to 
stock and to crops. For the remainder of the 
year, or for some eight months, little or no rain 
falls, and the climatic characteristic is one of 
extreme dryness. During the most of the year, 
therefore, the whole table-land of Mexico is mainly 
dependent for its water-supply upon a compara- 
tively few springs and storage-reservoirs ; and 
agriculture can not be generally carried on with- 
out resorting to some form of irrigatiooJ One 
rejoinder to what may be an unfavorable inference 
from these statements has been the counter-asser- 
tion that " in the immediate neighborhood of the 
large cities enough grain is raised by irrigation to 
keep constantly more than a year's extra supply 
ahead to provide against a possible failure of 
crops " ; and, further, that the storage capacity 
of the existing reservoirs of Mexico might easily 
be increased, and thus greatly extend the area of 
land capable of cultivation. But, admitting this, 
how great must be the obstacles in the way of 
developing any country where there is a liability 
to an almost entire failure of the crops from 
drought ; and where the small agricultural pro- 



122 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

prietor, who depends on each year's earnings to 
meet each year's needs, has always got to antici- 
pate and guard against such a possibility ! /There 
are vast tracts of land also in Mexico, especially 
in the northern part, where grass sufficient for 
moderate pasturage will grow all or nearly all 
the year, but on which the water-holes are so 
few, and so entirely disappear in the dry season, 
that stock can not live on them. In a report 
recently sent (January, 1885) to the State Depart- 
ment, by Warner P. Sutton, United States consul- 
general to Matamoros, the statement is made that 
the annual value of the agricultural products of 
the State of South Carolina, having an area of 
30,570 square miles, is at least two and a half times 
as great as the whole like product of the six States 
of Northern Mexico — namely, Tamaulipas, Nuevo 
Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Lower California, and 
Sonora — which have an area of 355,000 square 
miles, and represent about one half of the territory 
of the whole republic ; or, making allowance for 
the areas of land under comparison, the annual 
agricultural product of South Carolina is from 
twenty to twenty-five times as valuable as that of 
the whole northern half of Mexico \j 

\ At the same time, while nearly all of Northern 
Mexico, in common witii New Mexico and Arizona 
and the western part of Texas, is notably a very 



HOME OF THE COW-BOY. 



123 



dry country, it has vast tracts covered with highly 
nutritious grasses, which are eminently fitted for 
the pasturage of horses, cattle, and sheep ; and 
which at the present time, as they have been for 
many years past, are abundantly stocked with 
these animals. In fact, the whole so-called " cattle- 
range business " had its origin, not in the United 
States, but in this section of Mexico, whence the cur- 
rent phrases, the manners, customs, and the meth- 
ods of doing business have been derived and copied 
all over the United States, wherever live-stock is 
raised, as it is termed, " on the range." Here also 
was the original home and origin of the cow-boy ; 
and here, to-day, " herding " constitutes the basis 
of nearly all business, and the source of nearly all 
subsistence, profits, and wealth of the inhabitants. 
Everybody here, as has been remarked, ** is more 
or less of a cow-boy — the lawyer, the doctor, the 
shoemaker, the tailor, the merchant, and even the 
editor " ; for it is " the man with the spurs and the 
lariat that gives character to this whole region." J 

On the " tierras calientes,'' or comparatively nar- 
row belt of coast-lands, on both the Atlantic and 
Pacific sides of Mexico, there is abundance of 
wood and water, cheap and fertile land, and most 
luxuriant vegetation, but the climate is such that 
the white races will never live there in the ca- 
pacity of laborers. When one hears, therefore, of 



124 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

possibilities of these regions in respect to coffee, 
sugar, tobacco, and a wide range of other valuable 
tropical products, this fact has got to be taken 
into account. They would, however, seem to be 
particularly adapted to the introduction and em- 
ployment of Chinese labor ; and during the past 
year delegations from the associated Chinese Com- 
panies of San Francisco have, it is understood, 
entered into negotiations with the Mexican Gov- 
ernment, with a view of promoting an extensive 
immigration into these portions of the national ter- 
ritory. 

\ In the State of Yucatan the scourge of locusts 
prevails to such an extent tiiat almost the only 
agricultural product on which the planter can con- 
fidently rely is the plant that furnishes the fiber 
of the heniquen, which for some reason the lo- 
custs do not attack. Fields of maize, well devel- 
oped in this section of Mexico, are said to be de- 
voured level with the ground by these pests in the 
course of a single hour.^ 

Again, much of the best land of the plateau of 
Mexico is in the nature of valleys surrounded by 
mountains, or of strips or sections separated by 
deserts. Thus, for example, to get from the city 
of Mexico into the fertile valley of Toluca, a com- 
paratively short distance, one has to ascend nearly 
three thousand feet within the first twenty-four 



ROADS AND TRANSPORTATION. 125 

miles : while between Chihuahua and Zacatecas 
there is an immense desert tract, over which the 
" Mexican Central Railway " has to transport in sup- 
ply-tanks the water necessary for its locomotives. 
It is true that in both of these instances the nat- 
ural difficulties have now in a erreat measure been 
remedied by railroad constructions ; (but when it 
is remembered that, outside of the leading cities 
and towns of Mexico, there are hardly any wheeled 
vehicles, save some huge, cumbersome carts with 
thick, solid, wooden wheels (a specimen of which, 
exhibited as a curiosity, may be seen in the Na- 
tional Musuem at Washington) ; that the transpor- 
tation of commodities is mainly effected on the 
backs of donkeys or of men ; that the roads in 
Mexico, as a general thing, are hardly deserving 
of the name ; * and that, even with good, ordinary 
roads and good teams and vehicles at command, a 
ton of corn worth twenty-five dollars at a market 
is worth nothing at a distance of a hundred and 

* One of the most noted routes in Mexico is from the capital to 
Acapulco, the best Mexican port on the Pacific ; a route that was trav- 
eled, and constituted a part of the transit for convoys of treasure and 
rich tropical products between the Indies and Old Spain, a hundred 
years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. And yet a journey 
over this route, a distance of three hundred miles, consumes ten days 
on horseback under the most favorable auspices ; and the path or trail 
followed has in great part so few of the essentials of a road that, in 
popular parlance, it is spoken of as " buen camhio de pajaros " (a good 
road for birds). 



126 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

twenty miles — remembering these things, one can 
readily accept the statement that, in many sec- 
tions of Mexico, no effort is made to produce any- 
thing in the way of crop products, except what 
has been found necessary to meet the simplest 
wants of the producers ; and for the reason that 
experience has proved to them that it was not 
possible to obtain anything in exchange for their 
surplus. ) 

(jhe plow generally in use in Mexico is a 
crooked stick, with sometimes an iron point; the 
yoke being lashed with rawhide thongs to the 
horns of the oxen which draw the prehistoric im- 
plement. \ American plows are beginning to be 
introduced to a considerable extent ; but the Mexi- 
can peasant on coming into possesion of one, gen- 
erally cuts off one handle, in order to make it con- 
form, as far as he can, to his ancient implement; 
and in recognition of this peculiarity of habit, an 
Illinois firm has recently introduced a form of plow 
with one handle ! sA bundle of brush constitutes 
the harrow. " Their hoes are heavy grub-hoes, 
and grass is cut by digging it up with such a 
hoe." J 

(j* The sickle is of the conventional tvpe of the 
time of the patriarchs, but, instead of having a 
sharp edge, it is provided with saw-teeth, and is 
used in gathering small grain, the employment 



METHODS OF AGRICULTURE. 



127 



of a cradle for such a purpose being unknown. 
In nearly all of Mexico, with the exception of 
some few districts, all grain is thrashed by the 
feet of horses or mules, which are driven round 
in a ring, the straw having been first spread on 
the ground, and the grain is separated from the 
chaff by the action of the wind. One objection 
urged by the Mexicans to thrashing-machines is 
that they leave the straw whole, while by the use 
of horses it is by the constant trampling cut up 
as fine as though run through a feed-cutter, and, 
as this straw is universally used as feed, any fur- 
ther preparation is obviated." — Consul Campbell. ** 

On not a few of the great haciendas of Mexico 
American and English agricultural machinery has, 
however, been introduced, and more or less used. 
But cheapness of manual labor and the great cost 
incident to transportation, local taxes, etc. (agri- 
cultural machinery being free from import duties), 
constitute serious drawbacks to the introduction 
of improved machinery into the countr)^ Added 
to this, should any part of a costly and unfamil- 
iar machine break upon one of the great estates, 
no Mexican blacksmith can repair it — especially if 
the broken part is cast-iron — and the machine, in 
most cases, is laid aside for that season. 

Nothing exhibits more strikingly the present 
poverty of Mexico, and the present inefficiency of 



128 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

her agriculture — notwithstanding the natural ad- 
vantages claimed for this industry, and that it is 
undoubtedly the principal occupation and support 
of her people — than a brief comparison of some 
of the results which have been recently reported 
for Mexico and the United States. ^According 
to a report published in 1883, by M. Bodo von 
Glaimer, an accepted Mexican authority, and other 
data, gathered and published by Senor Cubas, 
United States Consul-General Sutton, and the 
Agricultural Bureau at Washington, the value of 
all the leading agricultural products of Mexico — 
corn, wheat, sugar, tobacco, beans, coffee, and the 
like — for the year 1882 was estimated at about 
§175,000,000. But the present estimated value of 
the oat-crop alone of the United States is $180,- 
000,000. Again, corn constitutes the staple food 
of the Mexican people, and its product for 1882 
was estimated at about 213,000,000 bushels; which, 
with an assumed population of ten million, would 
give a product of 21^^^^^ bushels per capita. But 
for the United States for the year 1885 the prod- 
uct of corn was about thirtv-three bushels per 
capita. 3 

Although much of the soil of Mexico is un- 
doubtedly well adapted to the cultivatit^i of wheat, 
it is as yet a crop little grown or used — wheat- 
bread being eaten only by the well-to-do classes. 



CROP-PRODUCTS OF MEXICO. 



129 



Its product for 1882 was estimated at 12,500,000 
bushels, or at the rate of about \-^ bushel per 
capita; while for the year 1885, with a very defi- 
cient crop, the wheat product of the United States 
was in excess of six bushels per capita. Mexican 
coffee is as good as, and probably better than, 
the coffee of Brazil, and yet Mexico in 1883-84 
exported coffee to all countries to the value of 
only $1,717,190, while the value of the exports of 
coffee from Brazil to the United States alone, for 
the year 1885, was in excess of $30,000,000! Much 
has also been said of the wonderful adaptation of 
a great part of the territory of Mexico for the 
production of sugar, and everything that has been 
claimed may be conceded ; but, at the same time, 
sugar is not at present either produced or con- 
sumed in comparatively large quantities in Mexi- 
co, and, in common with coffee — another natural 
product of the countr}^ — is regarded rather as a 
luxury than as an essential article of food. Thus 
the sugar product of Mexico for the year 1877-78, 
the latest year for which data are readily acces- 
sible, amounted to only 154,549,662 pounds. As- 
suming the product for the present year (1886) 
to be as great as 200,000,000 pounds, this would 
give a Mexican per capita consumption of only 
twenty pounds as compared with a similar present 
consumption in the United States of nearly fifty 



I30 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

pounds. LXhe further circumstance that Mexico 
at the present time imports more sugar than it 
exports ; and that the price of sugar in Mexico is 
from two to four times as great as the average 
for the United States — coarse-grained, brownish- 
white, unrefined sugar retailing in the city of Mex- 
ico for twelve and a half cents a pound (with 
coffee at twenty-five cents) — is also conclusive on 
this point.* With the present very poor outlook 
for the producers of cane-sugars in all parts of 
the world, owing mainly to the bounty stimulus 
offered by the governments of Europe for the pro- 
duction of beet-sugar ; and the further fact that 
the only hope for the former is in the use of 
the most improved machinery, and the making of 
nothing but the best sugars at the point of cane 
production, the idea so frequently brought for- 
ward that labor and capital are likely to find their 
way soon into the hot, unhealthy coast-lands of 
Mexico, in preference to Cuba and South Amer- 
ica, and that the country is to be speedily and 
greatly profited by her natural sugar resources, 
has little of foundation. And, as additional cvi- 

* Sug.ir at La Paz, Lower California, sells for twenty-five cents a 
pound. In Sonora, where the sugar-cane grows naturally, a (jprk, 
coarse sugar is manufactured, but not in quantities sufficient for home 
consumption, about two thirds of the quantity consumed being import- 
ed from the United States or Central America. At Guerrero the price 
of white American is reported at twenty-five cents and of brown Mexi- 
can at five cents. 



MEXICAN COTTON. 131 

dence on these matters, the writer would here 
mention, that a statement has come to him from 
a gentleman who has been long connected and 
thoroughly acquainted with the '* Vera Cruz and 
City of Mexico Railroad," which runs through the 
best sugar and coffee territory of the country, that 
not a single acre of land more is now under 
cultivation along its line than there was at the 
time the road was completed, thirteen years ago. 
Added to which, export taxes, in some of the sugar- 
producing States — notably that of Vera Cruz — 
have been imposed to such an extent as to actu- 
ally prevent the starting of sugar-plantationsj 

f^he cotton-plant is supposed to be indigenous 
to Mexico, as Cortes on his first landing found 
the natives clothed in cotton fabrics of their own 
manufacture. Its culture has continued to the 
present day, but Avith very little improvement 
on the methods which existed at the time of the 
conquest. 

The fiber of Mexican cotton is larger than and 
not so soft and lustrous as American, but cotton 
production in some sections of the country pos- 
sesses this signal advantage, that for several suc- 
ceeding seasons the plants continue to bear profit- 
able crops, while in the United States the soil 
must each year be enriched with fertilizers and 
the seed renewed. ) 



132 ^-i STUDY OF MEXICO. 

The completion of the railways leading to the 
United States has prejudiced the market and 
greatly diminished the production of cotton in 
Mexico, as cotton can now be imported without 
the expense and delay that were hitherto unavoid- 
able. 

Potatoes are grown to a small extent in Mexi- 
co. The seed appears to degenerate, and needs 
frequent changes. A sort of sweet-potato, called 
the caviote, is grown, but not extensively. 

Whatever, therefore, may be the natural capa- 
bilities of Mexico for agriculture, they arc cer- 
tainly for the future rather than of the present. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Manufacturing in Mexico — Restricted use of labor-saving machinery 
— Scarcity of fuel and water — Extent of Mexican handicrafts — 
Number of factories using powei" — Manufacture of potteiy and 
leather — Restriction of employments for women — The pauper- 
labor argument as applied to Mexico — Rates of wages — Fallacy 
of abstract statements in respect to wages — Scarcity of labor 
in Mexico — Retail prices of commodities — The point of lowest 
wages in the United States — Analysis of a leading Mexican cot- 
ton-factory — Free trade and protection not matters of general in- 
terest in Mexico — Characteristics of the Mexican tariff system — 
Mines and mining — The United States, not Mexico, the great 
silver-producing country — Popular ideas about old Spanish mines 
without foundation. 

Manufactures. — Apart from handicrafts there is 
very httle of manufacturing, in the sense of using 
labor-saving machinery, in Mexico ; and, in a coun- 
try so destitute of water and fuel, it is difficult 
to see how there ever can be. In very many 
cases where the employment of machinery is in- 
dispensable, mule or donkey power seems to be 
the only resource ; as is the case in the majority 
of the mines and silver-reducing works of the 
country — not a pound of ore, for example, being 
crushed through the agency of any other power, 



134 ^4 STUDY OF MEXICO. 

in connection with the famous mines of Guana- 
juato. Many years ago an EngHsh company 
bought the famous Real del Monte mine, near 
Pachuca, which is reported to have yielded in a 
single year, with rude labor, $4,500,000. It was 
assumed that two things only were requisite to 
insure even greater returns ; namely, the pumping 
out of the water which had accumulated in the 
abandoned shafts, and the introduction of improved 
machinery for working at lower levels. Large 
steam-engines and other machinery were accord- 
ingly imported from England, and dragged up by 
mule-power from Vera Cruz, at immense cost and 
labor. But the new scheme proved utterly un- 
profitable, and after some years' trial was aban- 
doned. The expensive machinery was sold for 
about its value as old iron; the mines reverted 
to a Mexican company ; the old methods were 
again substantially introduced, and then the prop- 
erty once more began to pay. 

Deposits of coal of good quality are from 
time to time reported as existing, and readily ac- 
cessible. But the fact that the " Mexican Central 
Railroad " supplies itself from the coal-fields of 
Cokjrado, nearly fifteen hundred miles from the 
city of Mexico, and that the " Vera Cruz Railroad " 
and the great silver-mines at Pachuca import their 
coal from England — the latter at a reported cost 



MEXICAN MANUFACTURES. 135 

of twenty-two dollars per ton — fs in itself sufficient 
evidence that no coal from any Mexican mine has 
yet been made largely available for industrial 
purposes.* In Central Mexico, wood commands at 
the present time from twelve to sixteen dollars per 
cord, and coal from fifteen to twenty-one dollars 
per ton. 

On the other hand, the handicraft production 
of many articles of domestic use, such as laborers' 
tools and implements, hand-woven fabrics of cot- 
ton, wool, hemp, ixtle and other fibers, sandals, 
saddles, earthenware and tiles, the national hat, or 
sombrero, of wool or woven palm-leaf, baskets, trays, 
the national liquor, pulque, and its distillates and 
the like, constitutes a great domestic industry, 
which, as it is individual and unorganized, is of 
necessity very imperfectly known, and can not be 
recognized or represented by statistics. 

The number of factories of all kinds, using 
power, in Mexico, in 1883, was returned at some- 
what over one hundred. Included in this number 
were eighty-four cotton-factories, running 243,534 

* Workable beds of anthracite coal undoubtedly exist in the extreme 
northwest part of Mexico, about one hundred and ten miles east of the 
port of Guaymas, and also on the western border of the State of Chi- 
huahua ; and the former deposits have been used for some years for the 
generation of steam at several silver-mining establishments. But, in 
the absence of any cheap methods of transportation, the use of these 
deposits, whatever may be their extent and value, must be exceedingly 
limited. 



136 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

spindles, ten woolen-mills, and five establishments 
for the printing of calicoes, representing a valua- 
tion of $9,507,775, and giving employment to 12,646 
operatives of both sexes, of which 7,680 were men, 
2,111 women, and 2,855 children. 

The range of product of the Mexican factories 
is exceedingly limited, and comprises little besides 
the coarser cottons and woolens, the coarser va- 
rieties of paper, a few (cloth), printing and dye 
works, milling (flour), some machine-shops, and the 
manufacture of unrefined sugar. 

Notwithstandino;-, also, that Mexico is an ajTri- 
cultural country, she does not produce suflficient 
material (cotton and wool) to keep her small num- 
ber of textile factories in operation ; and for this 
reason, and also because of the inferior quality of 
cotton produced, she imports a considerable pro- 
portion of her raw cotton from the United States 
(5,877,000 pounds in 1885),* and also of her wool 
from Australia. 

The two largest and finest cotton-factories in 
Mexico are located at Quer6taro, on the Mexican 
plateau, and at Orizaba, on the line of the " Vera 

* The existing Mexican tariff imposes a duty of three cents per 
kilogramme (2.2 pounds avoirdupois) on the importation of un- 
ginned cotton, and eight cents on cotton ginned. Mexican cotton is 
packed in small bales weighing from one hundred and fifty to one hun- 
dred and seventy-five pounds ; and the pure lint commands about fif- 
teen cents per pound. American cotton ranges in price from sixteen 
to eighteen cents. 



MANUFACTURE OF POTTERY. 137 

Cruz Railroad," and just at the foot of the great 
decline from the plateau ; and it is interesting to 
note that, although the land adjacent to both of 
these factories is eminently adapted to the cult- 
ure of cotton, and cotton is actually grown upon 
it, one half of the cotton used at Quer6taro is 
American, while at Orizaba none other is used 
but the best New Orleans.* 

The industry of Mexican pottery, a handicraft 
exclusively, employs a great many laborers, but 
has no organizati.on — every community, and almost 
every family, in the districts where the conditions 
for production are favorable, making its own 
wares, as iron, tin, and copper cooking utensils are 
almost unknown in the domestic life of the masses 
of the Mexican people. The Indian manufacturer 
packs his pottery into wicker crates, about two 
feet broad and from five to six feet long, and 
starts to different portions of the country, on foot, 
with the crate on his back. Consul Lambert, of 
San Bias, states that he has known one " to travel 
more than two hundred and fifty miles to find a 
market, and dispose of his articles at prices vary- 
ing from one and a half to twelve, and, in the 
case of large pieces, as high as eighteen cents, 

* The number of cotton-factories in Mexico has more than quad- 
rupled since 1865, and the business of cotton-manufacturing at the 
present time seems to be in a highly prosperous condition. 



138 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

receiving', in the aggregate, for the sale of his 
cargo, from twelve to fifteen dollars." 

The manufacture of leather is also one of the 
great industries of Mexico; but, with the excep- 
tion of the sewing-machine, which has been largely 
introduced in this and other occupations, the prod- 
uct is exclusively one of handicraft. In a country 
where everybod}'^ rides who can, the saddlery busi- 
ness is especially important ; and by general ac- 
knowledgment there are no better saddles made 
anywhere in the world than in Mexico; and yet 
the United States has for many years exported 
from twenty to thirty thousand dollars' worth of 
saddles annuall)^ to Mexico. The explanation is, 
that the mechanical appliances used in the United 
States for making the " trees," and for stamping, 
cutting, sewing, and ornamental stitching, enable 
the American manufacturers to pay an import 
duty of fifty-five per cent, and undersell the hand- 
product of the low price (but dear cost) Mexican 
artisan. Consul-General Sutton, of Matamoros, 
reports to the State Department, under date of 
July, 1885, that Mexican dealers send to tlic United 
States model saddle-trees and designs for trap- 
pings, and find it more profitable to have the major 
part of the work of saddle-making done there, than 
to do it all by the low-wage hand-labor of their 
own country. 



EMPLOYMENTS FOR WOMEN. 



139 



" Hitherto public opinion in Mexico has almost 
absolutely prohibited any respectable female from 
engaging in any professional or personal occupa- 
tions, and "any occupation or profession which 
would draw a woman from the seclusion of her 
domestic circle would entail upon her loss of caste 
and the general reprobation of her sex. An edu- 
cated lady may devote herself to teaching the poor 
from motives of religious zeal, or exhibit her mu- 
sical talents in public at a charity concert, but pro- 
fessionally never. Pressed by poverty, a Mexican 
lady will work in lace, embroidery, or other artis- 
tic labor, and sell her productions privately, or 
even give private lessons in music, etc. ; but all the 
female professional teachers, artists, boarding-house 
keepers, etc., are foreigners, or nearly all ; for of 
late years, foreign travel, foreign education, and 
contact with foreigners at home, combined with 
the liberalizing tendency of reform laws, have 
somewhat modified the strictness of Mexican soci- 
ety in this regard. Among the Indians and lower 
classes of Mexico, however, the women take part 
promiscuously in all the labors, occupations, inter- 
ests, and amusements incident to their condition 
in life, and are neither secluded nor oppressed." — 
Report by United States Consul Strother, 1885. 

No country affords such striking illustrations 
as Mexico of the fallacy and absurdity of the so- 



I40 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

called " pauper-labor '' argument for " protection " ; 
or of the theory, which has proved so popular 
and effective in the United States, for justifying 
the enactment of high tariffs, that the rate of 
wages paid for labor is the factor that is mainly 
determinative of the cost of the resulting product ; 
and that, therefore, for a country of average high 
wages, the defense of a protective tariff against a 
country of average low wages is absolutely ne- 
cessar}^ as a condition for the successful prosecu- 
tion by the former of its industries. 

Wages, on the average, in Mexico, are from 
one half to two thirds less than what are paid in 
similar occupations in the United States ; and yet 
in comparison with the United States the price of 
almost all products of industry in Mexico is high. 
Thus, in the city of Mexico, where wages rule 
higher than in almost any part of the republic, 
the average daily wages in some of the principal 
occupations during the year 1885 were as follow: 
Laborers, porters, etc., forty to fifty cents ; masons, 
seventy-five cents to one dollar; assistants, thirty- 
seven and a half to fifty cents; teamsters, fifty 
cents; blacksmiths, one dollar and fifty cents; 
printers, one dollar ; saddle and harness makers, 
sixty-two cents ; tailors, seventy-five cents ; painters, 
eighty-seven and a half cents; weavers in the cot- 
ton-mills at Tcpic and Santiago, four dollars per 



WAGES IN MEXICO. 



141 



week of seventy-two hours ; spinners, three dollars 
ditto. In the cotton-mills in the vicinity of the 
city of Mexico a much higher average is reported. 
The operatives in the woolen manufactories of 
Mexico are in receipt of higher average wages 
than those in almost any other domestic industry ; 
and Mexican woolen fabrics are comparatively 
cheap and of good style and quality. Under- 
ground miners, at the great mines of Zacatecas 
and Guanajuato, receive an average of nine dol- 
lars per week of sixty hours; underground labor- 
ers, three dollars ditto. 

The wages of common or agricultural laborers 
vary greatly according to their nationality, loca- 
tion, and character of employment. The Indian 
agriculturist rarely achieves more than a meager 
and miserable support for himself and his family, 
with possibly a little surplus to pay his taxes to 
the State and his dues to the Church.* Accord- 
ed" Bemal Diaz, the companion of Cortes, who writes so graphically 
of ancient Mexico, assures us that the market-place of the original city 
did not greatly differ from what we see to-day — the chief change being 
that now no male and female slaves are on sale. The fruits of the soil 
and the results of individual labor have been repeating themselves for 
hundreds of years. Men have died, but others do the same thing from 
generation to generation. Here as impressively as anywhere in Mexi- 
co appears the tireless and mechanical iteration that marks the Indian 
as an unprogressive human animal, and shows him to be in lower life 
the same child of nature as the uneducated negro of the Southern States 
of the United States. The Aztec sold fowls, game, vegetables, fruits, 
articles of food ready dressed, bread, honey, and sweet pastry, when 
Diaz saw him — and he does the same to-day. There is no more organi- 



142 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

ing to the " Mexican Financier " of recent date, 
^"the wages of farm-laborers on the central table- 
lands of Mexico range from eighteen to twenty- 
three cents per day, and in the hot-country States, 
and on the coast, where labor is not so plentiful, 
the rates average from thirty-seven to fifty cents 
per day." Agricultural laborers in the district 
of San Bias average nineteen cents per day, with 
an allowance of sixteen pounds of corn per week. 
On a hacienda near Regla, in Central Mexico, 

zation about it now than tliere was three hundred years ago. Each 
Indian works for himself and sells when he wants money. Up from 
the hot country he passes to the city, traversing fifty and sixty miles a 
day, with a back-load of chickens, baskets, poultry, wooden bowls, or 
other salable stuff. Often the whole family make the trip and camp 
out on the flags of the plaza or market-house, guarding little piles of 
fruit or vegetables — beans, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, radishes, 
beans, beets, potatoes, or squashes — until the load has been disposed 
of. \It will be seen that the city is thus dependent on the caprices of 
the"Undian venders. If the people who raise potatoes or carrots do 
not happen to be in crying need of funds, it sometimes happens that 
there is a raging scarcity of those or other articles. There is no thrift 
or forehandedness about these Indians, and the half-dollar more or 
less that represents the sum total of a venture of this kind is squan- 
deced with reckless rapidity. The prospector of mining days wanted 
few provisions and much whisky, and the peon adopts the same thought- 
less and wanton policy — a little cloth and much pulque. The results 
are seen even in the very articles he barters. The stock has not been 
cultivated, and his vegetables are often withered and small and ' run 
out.' A first-class marlcet-garden in the hot country would be a boon 
to this city, but when it comes the peons will probably assert the 
' rights of labor ' against such a wholesale aggression of greedy capital, 
and they are not likely to do it any more brutally than have the strikers 
of countries that boast their higher civilization." — Correspondence of 
" Springfield Republican." 



LIFE OF THE MEXICAN PEASANT. 



143 



comprising- an area some eighteen miles in length 
by twelve in its greatest breadth, and including an 
artificial lake two miles in its principal dimensions, 
the wages paid in 1883 were six cents a day for boys 
and thirty-seven cents for the best class of adults^ 

All statements of this nature have, however, 
but little of significance unless account at the 
same time is taken of the value or purchasing 
power of the wages received, the needs of the 
wage recipient, and the character and value of the 
Avork which the wages purchase ; and when these 
matters are given due consideration it will be 
undoubtedly found that wages in Mexico, as every- 
where else, sustain a pretty constant ratio to the 
value of the services rendered, the inefficient and 
primitive methods used, and the necessities of the 
laborers ; and that if they seem to a citizen of the 
United States to be extraordinarily low, it should 
be remembered that the Mexican peasant, living 
in a mild and in part tropical climate, has not 
the stimulus of prospective want which exists else- 
where to incite to industrial effort, and is not re- 
quired to labor to meet expenditures for fuel, . 
clothing, food, and habitation, which in temperate 
and colder countries are essential for comfort and 
even for existence ; * or, in other words, his indus- 

\ * " Great stress is laid upon the capacity for cheap living of the 
Chinese coolie or Indian ryot. I believe that the Yucatecan labrador 
7 



144 A STUDY CF MEXICO. 

trial condition constitutes one more of the numer- 
ous illustrations, drawn from the world's experi- 
ence, of the proverb, that " mankind in general arc 
about as lazy and inefficient as they dare to be." 
It is also interesting to note, in connection with 
this subject, that a general complaint exists in 
Mexico of the scarcity and dearness of labor. 
Thus, the " Mexican Financier," in a recent arti- 
cle, says : 

" It is idle to hope for profitable culture in this 
country while labor is both scarce and dear, thus com- 
pelling the planters to look to Asia for cheap labor. 

can at least equal them in this respect. A ball of mai^e paste, or niasa, 
half as large as a man's head, and a gourd of water, give him the chief 
part of his daily sustenance. When hunger presses, he detaches a por- 
tion of the paste, puts it in his ever-ready jicara, or calabash-bowl, 
half filled with water, and with his not too clean fingers stirs it rapidly 
about until the milky /<y'^/ results, and is rapidly disposed of. Hot 
gjTiel of maize paste, or oriolle, forms his morning meal ; the cool 
pojol his noonday sustenance and a refreshing beverage between times. 
Sometimes after dusk, and when all work is over, he partakes of tor- 
tillas (thin cakes of maize) and an occasional chile, or green pepper. 
When frijoUs (the black beans of the countr)') or a small portion of 
cheap meat is added, he sits down to a sumptuous repast. Fruit costs 
him but the picking. The chiU and calabazas cost him but little more. 
Thus it can be seen that the Vucatecan labradot is not an expensive 
creature to feed. Earning twenty-odd cents a day, and having a por- 
tion of that deducted by the planter in payment of the ever-present 
debt, a labradjr can provide the coming week's provisions for his 
family and still have sufficient funds left to ' take a rest ' all day Sun- 
day and the following night. Cietting stupidly intoxicated with anis 
or aguardiente they politely term ' taking a rest,' and often during a 
prolonged debauch many do indeed take their final rest." — Report by 
United States Consul Thompson, Merida, Yucatan, 1885. 



SCARCITY OF LABOR. I45 

West coast papers are strongly opposed to Chinese im- 
migration, while at the same time they are denouncing 
native labor for being untrustworthy. The trouble with 
the peons in the hot country is that they will not work 
steadily, and it is difficult to believe that newspaper 
declamation, which they never read, will have any effect 
on them. ( This entire labor question requires to be de- 
cided for the good of Mexico as a whole. Possessing 
vast stretches of most fertile lands, Mexico is destitute 
of the laborers necessary to make her a great exporting 
nation." \ 

And yet the population of Mexico, to the square 
mile, is believed to be at least equal to, and possi- 
bly greater than, that of the United States. 

Hn Yucatan, United States Consul Thompson 
reports (1885) the condition of labor to be as fol- 
lows : 

" Suitable farm-labor is very scarce. Stran- 
gers, from the nature of the climate, are useless, 
absolutely so, as farm-laborers. Laborers from 
the Canary Islands have been imported, but the 
experiment was a failure. A negro laborer stands 
the test no better than the Canary-Islanders. 
Upon the IMayan Indian alone fall the heaviest 
burdens of agricultural labor."^ 

The following are the retail prices of some of 
the principal articles of domestic consumption in 
Mexico : Fresh beef, twelve to eighteen cents per 



1^6 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

pound; lard, twenty to twenty-five cents; coffee, 
twenty -five cents; sugar, unrefined, twelve to 
twenty cents; table-salt, six cents; kerosene, eighty- 
seven cents per gallon ; potatoes (city of Mexico), 
twenty-five cents per dozen ; butter, fifty cents to 
one dollar per pound ; flour, ten to twelve cents 
per pound ; corn-meal, not usually in the market, 
unless imported; candles, thirty to fifty cents; un- 
bleached cottons, ten to fifteen cents per yard ; 
calicoes, fifteen to twenty cents per yard. Uten- 
sils of tin and copper are fifty per cent dearer 
than in the United States ; while the retail prices 
of most articles of foreign hardware (and none 
other are used) are double, treble, and even four 
times as much as in the localities whence they are 
imported. " Between the extremes, a modest and 
economical lady's wardrobe will cost, at the city 
of Mexico, about fifty per cent more than the 
same stvlc in the United States. This, however, 
is modified by the climate, which requires no 
change of fashions to suit the seasons, as the same 
outfit is equally appropriate for every month in 
the year," — Strother. 

Imported articles of food are exceedingly high 
at retail in the city of Mexico. American hams, 
in canvas, forty to fifty cents per pound ; Ameri- 
can salmon, cans of one pound, one dollar ; mack- 
erel, eighteen to twentv-five cents each' ; codfish, 



PRICES OF COMMODITIES. 147 

twenty-five cents per pound ; cheese, fifty to seven- 
ty-five cents. 

It is also an undoubted fact that, in the matter 
of supplies of Mexican domestic products, a larger 
price is sometimes demanded in a wholesale trans- 
action than for the supply of a smaller quantity of 
the same article. This was the experience, in at 
least one instance, in railroad construction near 
Tampico, when it was desired to contract for rail- 
road-ties, although there was no scarcity of timber ; 
and the following story, illustrative of the same 
point, is told of one of the leading hotels in the 
city of Mexico, to the manager of which the agent 
of an American excursion party applied for accom- 
modations. " How much are your rooms per 
day ? " asked the agent. " Four dollars," was the 
answer. " But suppose I bring you eighty peo- 
ple ? " " Four dollars and a half per head in that 
case," returned the party of the second part. 
" That makes more trouble." 

In short, this condition of affairs in Mexico, in 
respect to wages and the cost of production, is in 
strict accord with what has been deduced within 
recent years from the experience of other coun- 
tries ; namel}', that the only form of labor to which 
the term " pauper " has any significant or truth- 
ful application is labor engaged in handicrafts as 
contradistinguished from machinery production; 



148 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

and that, where such handicraft or ignorant labor 
is employed in manufacturing, the final cost of its 
product, as represented by the amount of time re- 
quired, or the number of persons called for in 
any given department, must of necessity be high. 
Hence, wages under such circumstances (as exist 
in Mexico and elsewhere) will be very low, and 
the conditions of life very unsatisfactory and de- 
basing. 

On the other hand, when machinery is intelli- 
gently applied for the conversion or elaboration 
of comparatively clicap crude materials — coal, ores, 
metals, fibers, wood, and the like — a very little 
manual labor goes a great way, and production 
(as in the United States) is necessarily large. This 
being sold in the great commerce of the world, 
gives large returns, and the wages represented in 
such production will be high, because the cost of 
the product measured in terms of labor is low, 
and the employer is thereby enabled to pay liber- 
ally ; and in fact is obliged to do so, in order to 
obtain under the new order of things what is 
really the cheapest (in the sense of the most effi- 
cient) labor. Or, to state this proposition more 
briefly, the invariable concomitant of high wages 
and the skillful use of machinery is a low cost 
of productit)n and a large consumption. 

The following circumstance curiously illustrates 



THE LOWEST AMERICAN WAGES. 



149 



the prevailing low money rate of wages in Mexi- 
co, and the obstacle which such cheap labor inter- 
poses to the attainment of large production : At 
one point on the " Mexican Central Railroad," while 
journeying south, a machine, the motive-power of 
which was steam, for pumping water into tanks 
for the supply of the locomotives, was noticed, 
and commented upon for its compactness and 
efifectiveness. On the return journey, this ma- 
chinery was no longer in use ; but a man, work- 
ing an ordinary pump, had been substituted. The 
explanation given was that, with hand-labor cost- 
ing but little more than the (Colorado) coal con- 
sumed, the continued employment of an engine 
and an American engineer was not economical. 

But at no point within the observation of the 
writer, either on the Continent of North America 
or in Europe, do wages, or rather remuneration 
for regular labor, reach so low a figure as at Santa 
Fe, within the Territories of the United States. 
At this place, one of the notable industrial occu- 
pations is the transport and sale of wood for use 
as fuel. The standard price for so much as can 
be properly loaded upon a donkey (or burro) is 
fifty cents. The money price of the wood is high : 
but, as it is brought from a distance of fifteen, 
twenty, thirty, or even more miles, each load may 
be fairly considered as representing the exclusive 



I50 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

service of a donkey for two days — going, return- 
ing, and waiting for a purchaser — and the serv- 
ices or labor of an able-bodied man, as owner or 
attendant, apportioned to from three to five don- 
keys for a corresponding length of time. The 
gross earnings of man and donkey can not, there- 
fore, well be in excess of twenty-five cents per 
day ; from which, if anything is to be deducted 
for the original cost of the wood, its collection 
and preparation, and for the subsistence of the man 
and beast, the net profit will hardl}- be appreciable. 
Or, in other words, able-bodied men, with animals, 
are willing to work, and work laboriously, at Santa 
F6, in the United States, for simple subsistence ; 
and a subsistence, furthermore, inferior in quality 
and quantity to. the rations generally given to 
acknowledged paupers in most American poor- 
houses; and yet no high-priced laborer in the 
United States has any more fear of the industrial 
competition of the pauper laborers of Santa F6 
than he has of the competition of the paupers who 
are the objects of charitable support in his own 
immediate locality. 

One of the largest, best-conducted, and (by re- 
pute) most profitable of the cotton-factories of 
Mexico, and one of the largest manufacturing estab- 
lishments in the countrv, is the " Hercules " mill, 
located near Quer6taro, 152 miles from the capital. 



A MEXICAN COTTON-MILL. 



151 



Taking a tramway, with comfortable cars of New 
York construction, for a distance of about three 
miles from the plaza, the visitor, on approaching, 
finds an establishment, embracing several acres, 
entirely surrounded by a massive, high, and thick 
wall, with gateways well adapted for defense and 
exclusion. On entering, the objects which first 
arrest attention are an attractive little park, with 
semi-tropical trees and shrubs ; handsome resi- 
dences for the owner and his family, and a stone 
armory or guard-house — with men in semi-military 
costume lounging about — containing a complete 
military equipment for thirty-seven men, horse and 
foot — Winchester rifles and two small pieces of 
artillery. Without being too inquisitive, the visit- 
ors are given to understand that all this military 
preparation was formerly more necessary than at 
present ; but that even now it was prudent for the 
officers or agents of the mill to have an armed 
escort in making collections, contingent upon the 
sale of its products, from the country dealers and 
shopkeepers. Back of the guard-house were the 
mill-buildings proper, warehouses, stables, boiler- 
house, etc., all well arranged, of good stone con- 
struction, scrupulously clean, and in apparently ex- 
cellent order. 

The machinery equipment, as reported, was 
21,000 spindles and 700 looms; its product being 



152 A STUDY OF HEX ICO. 

a coarse, unbleached cotton fabric, adapted for the 
staple clothinj^ of the masses, and known as luan- 
ia. Both water- and steam-power were used. In 
the case of the former, a small stream, with a hijj^h 
fall, being utilized through an iron overshot-wheel, 
forty-six and a half feet in diameter — one of the 
largest ever constructed ; for the latter a fine 
" Corliss " engine from Providence, Rhode Island. 
The spinning-frames and a part of the looms were 
from Paterson, New Jersey. The remainder of the 
looms, the steam-boilers, and the immense water- 
wheel, were of English workmanship. Wood, cost- 
ing sixteen dollars per cord, was used for fuel ; 
and the motive-power was in charge of a Yankee 
engineer, who had been induced to leave the 
Brooklyn (New York) water-\vorks, bv a salary 
about double what he had received there ; but 
who declared that nothing would induce him to 
remain be)-ond the term (two years) of his con- 
tract, which had nearly expired. The motives 
prompting to this conclusion were suggested by 
observing, on visiting his quarters outside of the 
gates, that a revolver hung conveniently near the 
head of his iron bedstead, while another was sus- 
pended from the wall, in close proximity to the 
little table on which his meals were served; and 
also by tlie following remark, called out by a sug- 
gestion from one of tiie visitors, that a rug on the 



HOURS OF LABOR. I 53 

hard, unattractive red-tile floors would seem to be 
desirable : " If you had to examine your bed every 
night, to see that a scorpion or centiped was not 
concealed in its coverings, the less of such things 
you had to turn over the better." 

CAccording to information furnished on inquiry, 
the hours of labor in this typical Mexican cotton- 
mill were as follows: "help" work from daylight 
until 9.30 P. M., going ovit a half-hour for break- 
fast at 9.30 A. M., and an hour for dinner, at 2 
P. M. ; Saturday night the machinery runs later. 
The spinners earn from thirty-seven and a half 
to fifty cents per day ; weavers from six to seven 
dollars per week. \ On hearing these statements, 
one of the visiting party, more interested in hu- 
manitarianism than in manufactures or economics, 
involuntarily remarked, " Well, I wonder if they 
have got a God down in Mexico ! " /There were 
present at this visit and inspection a representa- 
tive of one of the large cotton-factories at Fall 
River, and one of the best recognized authorities 
On mechanics and machinery, from Lowell, Massa- 
chusetts ; and the judgment of these experts, after 
taking all the facts into consideration, was, that if 
this Mexican cotton-factory, with all its advan- 
tages in the way of hours of labor and wages, 
were transferred to New England, it would, in 
place of realizing any profit, sink a hundred thou- 



154 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

sand dollars per annum. And yet the proprietor 
of this mill (Don Rubio) and his family are re- 
puted to be among the richest people in MexicoJ 
The adoption of the theory of " free trade," or 
•* protection," as the basis of a national fiscal policy, 
does not appear to have as yet interested, to any 
great extent, either the Government or the people 
of Mexico ; and it is doubtful whether public 
opinion has come to any decision as to which 
policy will best promote the progress of the coun- 
try. Ojnder the tariff act in force in 1882, there 
were one hundred and four specifications of arti- 
cles which could be imported free of duty — in- 
cluding vessels of all kinds, machinery, and most 
railroad equipments and cars — and eleven hun- 
dred and twenty-nine specifications of articles sub- 
ject to duties, nearly all of which (only thirty-two 
exceptions) are simple and specific. No other 
rule seems to have been recognized and followed 
in imposing duties on imports than that "the 
higher the duty (or tax) the greater will be the 
accruing revenue "rv and the ad valorem equiva- 
lents of many of the apparently simple and moder- 
ate duties levied on imports into Mexico are con- 
sequently so excessive, that the average rate of 
the Mexican tarifT is probably greater than that 
adopted at present by any other civilized country. 
All domestic manufacturinfr industries that could 



THE MEXICAN TARIFF. 



155 



be exposed to foreign competition — as, for exam- 
ple, the comparatively few cotton, woolen, and 
paper mills, and print-works — accordingly enjoy a 
degree of protection that nearly or quite amounts 
to prohibition of all competitive legitimate imports ; 
though it may be doubted whether the fiscal offi- 
cers who advised or determined such rates had 
any knowledge or care for any economic theory, 
but they may have been, and probably were, in- 
fluenced in their conclusions by the representa- 
tions of interested parties. But, be this as it may, 
the practical working of such a tariff, in such a 
poor, undeveloped country as Mexico, is well 
illustrated by a recurrence to Don Rubio and his 
cotton-mill. The average fabric produced at this 
establishment is protected by a duty on similar 
imports of nine and three quarters cents per square 
metre, or about eight cents per square yard ; and 
sells in the city of Mexico for four dollars per 
piece of thirty-two varus (or thirty yards), or at the 
rate of about thirteen cents per square 3^ard. In 
the more remote districts of the country, or at re- 
tail, these prices are considerably greater. Domes- 
tic industry is thereby promoted ; and the cotton- 
manufacturers of Mexico amass great wealth. 

But let us look at the other side of this pict- 
ure. The number of operatives who obtain oppor- 
tunities for employment by reason of the existence 



156 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

of cotton manufacturing, including- print-works, in 
Mexico is probably not more at the present time 
than twelve thousand. The population of Mexico, 
to whom cotton-cloth is the chief and essential 
material for clothing, may be estimated at ten 
million. Free from all tariff restrictions, the fac- 
tories of Fall River, Massachusetts, could sell in 
Mexico at a profit a cotton fabric as good as, or 
better than, that produced and sold by the factory 
at Queretaro, for five cents a yard, or even less. 
/A population of ten million, poor almost beyond 
conception, have therefore to pay from two to 
three hundred per cent more for the staple mate- 
rial of their simple clothing than needs be, in or- 
der that some other ten or twelve thousand of their 
fellow-citizens — men and women — may have the 
privilege of working exhaustively from fcjurteen 
to fifteen hours a day in a factory, for the small 
pittance of from thirty-five to seventy cents, and 
defraying the cost of their own subsistence ! Nor 
is this all. Under such excessive duties as now 
prevail, comparatively few cheap coarse cotton 
fabrics are legitimately imported into Mexico, and 
the Government fails to get the revenue it so 
much needs. The business of smuggling is, how- 
ever, greatly encouraged, and all along the north- 
ern frontiers of Mexico lias become so well organ- 
ized and so profitable as to successfully defy the 



SMUGGLING. 1 57 

efforts of the Government to prevent itj On the 
shelves of the stores of all the Mexican towns and 
cities, within two hundred and fifty to three hun- 
dred miles from the northern frontier, American 
cotton fabrics predominate. Five hundred miles 
farther " southing," however, seems to constitute 
an insuperable obstacle to the smuggler, and simi- 
lar goods of English and French manufacture al- 
most entirely replace at such points the American 
products. The present loss to the Mexican Gov- 
ernment from smuggling along its northern front- 
ier has been recently estimated by the " Mexican 
Financier" at not less than $1,500,000 per annum 
— a matter not a little serious in the present con- 
dition of Mexican finances ; while all intelligent 
merchants along the frontier are of the opinion 
that neither the United States nor the Mexican 
Treasury officials can, by reason of this great illicit 
traffic, have any accurate knowledge of the amount 
of international trade between the two countries. 
But if the present Mexican tariff on the import 
of foreign cotton fabrics were to be materially re- 
duced, or abolished, would not, it may be asked, 
the cotton-factories of Mexico be obliged to sus- 
pend operations? Undoubtedly they would; but 
who, save the manufacturers, would thereby ex- 
perience any detriment ? The Mexican people 
would continue to have cotton-cloth the same as 



158 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

now, and probably in greater abundance; for there 
is no other so cheap and suitable material available 
to them for clothing. But as the American and 
European manufacturers would not make their 
cloth a gift, or part with it for nothing, the Mexi- 
can would be obliged to buy it ; or, what is the 
same thing, give some product of his labor in ex- 
change for it. Consequently, the opportunity for 
the profitable employment of the Mexican people 
as a whole could not be restricted, if, in conse- 
quence of the abolition of the existing tariff on the 
import of cotton fabrics, they were relieved from 
an exorbitant and imncccssary enhancement of the 
cost of their clothing. 

The great attractions which Mexico, in com- 
mon with other Central American and South 
American countries and the West India islands 
offer for immigration, arc the geniality of climate 
and the small amount of physical exertion neces- 
sary to insure a comfortable subsistence. But once 
remove or neutralize these inducements by oppress- 
ive taxation and restrictions on trade and com- 
merce, and immigration and the accession of capi- 
tal from without will be reduced to a minimum, or 
altogether prevented. 

Mines and Mining. — The mining for the pre- 
cious metals, and more especially for silver, has 
been, since the conquest of the country, and is 



MINES AND MINING. 



159 



now, one of the great industries of Mexico, al- 
though it is the opinion of persons, well qualified 
to judge, that the country to-day would have 
been richer and more prosperous in every way if 
no mines of the precious metals had ever been 
discovered within its territories. That the prod- 
uct and profit of silver-mining in the past have 
been very great is certain ; that a considerable 
number of mines are 3^et worked to a profit, and 
that future mines of great value will be discovered 
in the future, is also altogether probable. The 
popular ideas concerning the amount of the pre- 
cious metals that have been furnished by the Mexi- 
can mines since the discovery and conquest of the 
country by the Spaniards, and the present annual 
product of gold and silver by Mexico, are, doubt- 
less, a good deal exaggerated. The coinage rec- 
ords since the establishment of mints in Mexico, 
in 1537, down to i883-'84, which are accepted as 
substantially accurate, and which indicate approxi- 
mately the value of precious metals produced by 
the country during this period, are as follows : 

From 1537 to 1821 (the last year of the Spanish 
colonial epoch), gold, $68,778,411 ; silver, $2,082,- 
260,656; total, $2,151,039,067. 

From 1822-23 to June 30, 1884, gold, $45,605,- 
793; silver, $1,023,718,366; total, $1,069,324,159. 
At the present time the annual product of gold 



l6o ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

and silver in the United States is far greater than 
that of Mexico. Thus, for the year 1883 the pro- 
duction of the United States was estimated to 
have been — gold, §30,000,000 ; silver, $46,200,000 ; 
total, $76,200,000. For Mexico, the estimates for 
the }'ear 1883-84 were, gold, $500,000; silver, 
$24,000,000; total, $24,500,000. 

The greatest obstacle in the way of the suc- 
cessful prosecution and development of the min- 
ing industry of Mexico, as also in the case of 
manufactures, is the scarcity of fuel and water 
for the generation and application of mechanical 
power, and also the scarcity of labor — many of 
the mines being at great distances from centers 
of population — and the lack of convenient and 
cheap means of transportation. The impression 
which an American visitor to one of the great 
Mexican silver-mines, or reducing-works, at first 
receives is almost always that of surprise at the 
apparent rudeness and shiftlessness of the methods 
ot working. But a further acquaintance soon sat- 
isfies him that what is done is the result of long 
experience, and is the best that probably could 
be under all the circumstances. Thus, for exam- 
ple, for the purpose of extracting the silver from 
the ore by amalgamation, the rock, ground to a 
fine powder and made into a paste with water, is 
spread out on the fh)or of a large court, and then 



OLD SPANISH MINES. i6i 

worked up, with certain proportions of common 
salt, sulphate of iron, and quicksilver, into a vast 
mud-pie, by means of troops of broken-down 
horses or donkeys, which for two or three weeks 
in succession tramp round and round in the mass 
— animals and Indian drivers alike sinkmg- leg- 
deep in the paste at every movement. When the 
amalgamation is completed, it is brought in ves- 
sels or baskets rather than with wheelbarrows, to 
washing-tanks, where half-naked men and boys 
further " puddle " it until the metal falls to the 
bottom, and the refuse runs away. The process 
is hard, and even cruel, for both man and beast, 
and is not expeditious ; but it is economical (con- 
sidered in reference to the cost of other methods 
involving power), and is effective. 

■ The number of mining properties at present 
worked in Mexico by American companies is un- 
derstood to be about forty. 

The popular idea that there are a considerable 
number of old Spanish mines in Mexico which 
were worked to great profit before the revolution, 
and then abandoned when their original proprie- 
tors were driven from the countr)% and are now 
ready to return great profits to whoever will re- 
discover and reopen them, has probably very lit- 
tle foundation in fact. Sixty-five years have now 
elapsed since Mexico achieved her independence, 



1 62 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

and during all this time the Mexicans, who are 
good miners, and to whom mining has to a cer- 
tain extent the attractiveness of lottery ventures, 
have, we may be sure, shrewdly prospected the 
whole country and have not concealed any of its 
business opportunities. Capital, furthermore, has 
not been wanting to them. For, in the early days 
of the independence of the republic, the idea that 
the working of old Spanish mines in Mexico prom- 
ised great profits amounted to almost a " craze " 
in England ; and millions on millions of British 
capital were poured into the country for such ob- 
jects ; while the mining districts of Cornwall were 
said to have been half depopulated, through the 
drain on their skilled workmen to serve in the 
new enterprises. It is sufficient to say that the re- 
sults were terribly disastrous. 

Many mines in Mexico could be profitably 
worked, and probably would be, by American 
capital, if the American tariff on the import of 
ores did not prevent them from being sent to 
smelters in the United States. As it is, a con- 
siderable quantity of lead and copper ores, rich in 
gold and silver, are sent from mines in Northern 
Mexico to points as far distant as Germany for 
conversion — as freight to Laredo and Corpus 
Christi, in Texas, and thence as ballast to Europe, 
at a cost of from sixteen to twcntv dollars per ton. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Taxation in Mexico — Each State and town its own custom-houses 
— Practical illustrations of the effect of the system — Cost of im- 
porting a stove from St. Louis — Export taxes — Mexican taxa- 
tion a relic of European mediEevalism — The excise or internal 
tax system of Mexico — A continuation of the old " alcavala " tax 
of Spain — Effect of taxation upon general trade — The method of 
remedy most difficult — Parallel experience of other countries — • 
Greatest obstacle to tax reform in Mexico. 

TAXATION. 

Of all the economic features of Mexico there 
is no one more novel, interesting, and instructive, 
and withal more antagonistic in its influence to 
the development of the country, than the system 
by which the Government — Federal, State, and 
municipal — raises the revenue essential to defray 
its necessary expenditures. 

The general characteristics of the Mexican tar- 
iff, or system of taxing imports, have been already 
noticed. But one altogether anomalous and ab- 
surd feature of it remains to be pointed out. 

In all commercial countries, save those which 
permit the levy by certain municipalities of the 



164 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

so-called " octroi " taxes, when foreign articles or 
merchandise have once satisfied all customs re- 
quirements at a port, or place of entry, and have 
been permitted to pass the frontier, they are ex- 
empted from any further taxation as i)nports, or 
so long as they retain such a distinctive charac- 
ter.* (But, in Mexico, each State of the republic 
has practically its own custom-house system ; and 
levies taxes on all goods — domestic and foreign — 
passing its borders ; and then, in turn, the several 
towns of the States again assess all goods enter- 
ing their respective precincts. The rate of State 
taxation, being determined by the several State 
Legislatures, varies and varies continually with 
each State. In the Federal district — i. e., the city 
of Mexico — the rate was recently two per cent of 
the national tariff; but, in the adjoining State of 
Hidalgo, it was ten per cent, and in others it is 
as high as sixteen per ccnt.f The rate levied by 

* The riglit to import is held to carry with it a right to sell on the 
part of the importer, without further restrictions, i. e., in the original 
packages. Thus, the United States Supreme Court has dccidcil that 
a license-tax imposed by a State of the Federal Union, as a prerequis- 
ite to the right to sell an imported article, is equivalent to a duty on 
imports, and in violation of the provision of the Federal Constitution, 
which prohibits the States from imposing import duties ; and the de- 
cision has been carefully recognized by the authorities of the several 
States in dealing with imported liquors under local license or other 
restrictive laws. 

•f " In all cases these duties are not imposed for the mere transit 
of goods through the States, but for the fact of l>eing consumed with- 



INTERIOR CUSTOM-HOUSES. 165 

the towns is said to be about nine per cent of 
what the State has exacted ; but in this there is no 
common rule. Thus, under date of April 9, 1886, 
an official of the " Mexican National Railroad " 
writes : " Goods destined for San Luis (i. e., via 
railway) pay a local tax in Laredo, Mexico, but 
on arrival at San Luis pay a municipal tax. These 
taxes are eternally changing, and are sometimes 
prohibitory. Take lumber, for example. Three 
months ago there was a municipal tax of thirty 
dollars per one thousand feet. This has now been 
reduced to one dollar per one thousand feet ; but 
there is no certainty that the old tax will not be 
restored." Nor is this all. For the transit of 
every territorial boundary necessitates inspection, 
assessment, the preparation of bills of charges, and 
permits for entry ; and all these transactions and 
papers involve the payment of fees, or the pur- 
chase and affixing of stamps. Thus, by section 
377 of the tariff law of December, 1884, it is or- 
dained " that the custom-house shall give to every 
individual who makes any importation, upon the 
payment of duties, a certificate of the sum paid, 
which certificate, on being presented to the ad- 
ministrator of the stamp-office in the place of im- 

in the State itself. The case, therefore, will not occur, that ihe same 
goods pay twice over the duties of consumption." — Report of the Mexi- 
can Secretary of Finance, 1879. 



1 66 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

portation, shall be changed for an equal amount 
in custom-house stamps. For this operation the 
interested party shall pay, to the administrator of 
whom he receive the stamps, two per cent in 
money (coin) of the total value of the stamps."^ All 
imports into Mexico at the present time are liable, 
therefore, to these multiple assessments ; and the 
extent to which they act as a prohibition on trade 
may be best illustrated by a few practical examples. 
In 1885, an American gentleman, residing in 
the city of Mexico as the representative of cer- 
tain New England business interests, with a view 
of increasing his personal comfort, induced the 
landlady of the hotel where he resided (who, 
although by birth a Mexican, was of Scotch 
parentage) to order from St. Louis an American 
cooking-stove, with its customary adjuncts of pipes, 
kettles, pans, etc. In due time the stove arrived; 
and the following is an exact transcript of the 
bills contingent, which w^ere rendered and paid 
upon its delivery : 

\ Original Invoice: 

I stove weight 282 pounds. 

I box pipe " 69 " 

I box stove-furniture " S6 " 

Total 437 pounds, or 199.3 kilos. 

Cost in St. Louis, United Stales currency $26 50 

Exchange at 20 per cent 5 30 

Total $31 80 



COST OF AN IMPORTED STOVE. 167 

Brought forward $31 80 

Freight from St. Louis to city of Mexico (rail), at 

$3.15 per 100 pounds $15 75 

Mexican consular fee at El Paso 485 

Stamps at El Paso 45 

Cartage and labor on boxes examined by custom- 
house at El Paso 50 

Forwarding commission, El Paso 2 00 

Exchange 163 per cent on $7.64 freight advanced 

by Mexican Central Railroad i 25 $56 60 

Import Duties : 

I box, 128 kilos (stove), iron, without brass or cop- 
per ornaments, at 19 cents per kilo $24 42 

I box, 31.3 kilos, iron pipe, at 24 cents per kilo. . . 751 
I box iron pots, with brass handles, at 24 cents per 
kilo 9 48 

$41 41 
Add 4 per cent as per tariff 165 

$43 06 
Package duty, 50 cents per 100 kilos i 00 

$44 06 
Add 5 per cent as per tariff 2 20 

$46 26 
Add 2 per cent municipal duty 93 

$47 19 
Add 5 per cent consumption duty 2 36 

$49 55 
Dispatch of goods at Buena Vista station, city of 

Mexico , 38 

Stamps for permit 50 

$50 43 

$107 03 
Cartage in city of Mexico 75 

Total $107 78 



1 68 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

Resume : 

Original cost of stove, with exchange $31 80 

Freight, consular fees, and forwarding 24 80 

Import duties 50 43 

Cartage 75 

Total $107 78 

[Note. — This stove was shipped from El Paso in a lot of goods for 

Messrs. & Co., the largest importing house in Me.xico, thereby 

saving an expense of two thirds the consular fee — $14.56 — which, if 
paid on the invoice alone, would have added $9.71 to charges, and 
raised the total to $117.49.] V 

In 1878 Hon. John W. Foster, then United 
States minister to Mexico, in a communication to 
the Manufacturers' Association of the Northwest 
(Chicago), thus analyzed the items of the cost, in 
the city of Mexico, of a tierce, weighing- gross 
328 pounds, containing 300 pounds (net) of sugar- 
cured hams: 

New York cost, 300 pounds at 11 cents $33 00 

New York expenses, such as cartage, consular invoice ($4 gold), 

manifest, etc., average 5 per cent on large shipments i 65 

Freight from New York to Vera Cruz at i cent per pound, pay- 
able in New York 3 25 

Exchange on New York, $37.90 at 18 per cent 6 82 

Import duties in Vera Cruz, 138 kilos at 24 cents per kilo. ... 33 12 

Municipal duties in Vera Cruz, $1.03 for every 400 pounds. . . 84 
Lighterage and handling from steamer to warehouse ($l to $1.50 

per every 200 pounds) i 63 

Maritime brokerage, 2 per cent on freight ($3.25) 07 

Opening and closing barrel 50 

Additional charges in Vera Cruz for stamps and cartage to rail- 
road-station, etc I 50 

Commission in Vera Cruz, 2 per cent on $70.66 141 

Cai ricd forward $83 79 



NAILS, HAMS, AND SALT. 169 

Brought forward $83 79 

Exchange on Vera Cruz, i per cent on $39.06 39 

Railroad freight from Vera Cruz to Mexico, 140 kilos, at $54.32 

a ton 7 60 

Local duties in city of Mexico, 2 per cent on Federal duty, 

$3312 66 

Local expenses in city of Mexico, cartage from depot, expenses 

in custom-house, etc 75 

Total $93 19 

The net cost of one pound of imported Ameri- 
can ham in the city of Mexico in 1878 was there- 
fore 31 cents, or $1 in hams in New York was 
equal to $2.82 in Mexico ! 

A similar analysis showed an invoice of ten 
kegs of cut nails, costing two and a half cents per 
pound in New York, or $22.50, to have cost 141^5^ 
cents per pound, or $141.64, when imported, in the 
city of Mexico ; or $1 value in nails in New York 
was equal to $6.29 in Mexico. In the case of salt, 
costing $2 per barrel in New York, the cost of 
importation was $20.40; or $1 of salt in New York 
was equal to $10.20 in Mexico! And in the case 
of (Milwaukee) beer, a barrel costing, on board 
steamer in New Orleans, $13, cost $35.61 in the 
city of Mexico. It is clear, therefore, as Mr. Foster 
points out in connection with the above exhibits, 
that "articles of the most common use in the 
United States must be luxuries in Mexico, on ac- 
count of their high price"; and that while "this 
would be the case, with such charges, in almost 



170 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

any country, however rich it might be, it is es- 
pecially so in Mexico, where there is so much 
poverty." * 

f Again, the Mexican tariff provides that the 
effects of immigrants shall be admitted free. " But 
this," writes an officer of the " Mexican National 
Railroad Company," "is practically a dead letter, 
from the fact that interior duties are levied on 
everything the immigrant has, before he gets set- 
tled ; and these are so great that no one goes. 
I've never known but one case go through Lare- 
do. ... A carpenter, or other mechanic, who de- 
sires to get employment in Mexico, has such heavy 
duties levied on his tools on passing the national 

* The Mexican Secretary of Finance, in his reply to the report of 
Minister Foster (before noticed), meets these exhibits by saying that 
"if, instead of selecting articles rated highest in the Mexican tariff, the 
account of an article, free of duty, like machinery, for example, had been 
presented, the showing would have been quite different. ... In the 
account set forth (by Minister Foster) there are some erron;, but, even 
if they were exact, it would be proved that, in spite of the high figure 
of expense attached to the importation of hams and nails, the operation 
involves no loss, but, on the contrary, brought a profit which amply re- 
pays the importer for his trouble. The imposts which goods suffer on 
arriving at their place of consumption do not, as a general rule, de- 
termine whether they can or can not be sold. If the article can be 
produced at a less price in the consuming district, no foreign nation can 
compete with it, even though there should be no duty to pay ; and if, 
on the contrary, there is a demand, high duties do not affect the im- 
porters, because they fall on the consumer. . . .If it were desirable," 
continues the Secretarj', with not a little of well-warranted sarcasm, 
" Mexico could also present statements showing that some of its prod- 
ucts suffer as heavy imposts, when exported to the United States, as 
those mentioned" by Mr. Foster, which arc exported to Mexico. 



INTERSTATE TAXES. 



171 



or State frontiers, that few are willing- or able to 
pay them. Hence few American mechanics find 
their way into the country, unless in accordance 
with special contract." 1 

•'^This practice of locally taxing- interstate com- 
merce is in direct contravention of an article in 
the Mexican Constitution of 1857, and it is said 
also of express decisions of the national Supreme 
Court. Several of the leading States of Mexico 
have at different times tried the experiment of 
prohibiting it by legislative enactments ; but the 
States and municipalities of the country are always 
hard pressed to raise money for their current ex- 
penditures, and find the taxing of merchandise in 
transit so easy a method of partially solving their 
difficulties that the Federal authorities have not 
yet been able, or, speaking more correctly, willing 
to prevent it.* | 

* In October, 1883, in response to a call of the President of the 
Republic, the Governors of the several States of Mexico appointed 
each two delegates, who assembled in convention at the capital, and 
after some deliberation published a report which exhibited the incom- 
patibilities, disadvantages, and abuses of the system in the most con- 
vincing manner ; but acknowledging, at the same time, that, as all the 
State governments were more or less dependent upon it for their reve- 
nues, they could not recommend its present abolition. The report 
also concluded with a recommendation " that Congress should at once 
legalize a practice which a constitutional prohibition had failed to pre- 
vent, and which, under existing circumstances, it would be impolitic 
to suppress entirely." And, in deference to the suggestions of this 
conference, the Mexican Congress subsequently passed a law, with a 
view of modifying and limiting the authority of the State and munici- 



172 --/ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

The reciprocity treaty, which was recently pro- 
posed between the United States and Mexico, 
provided that certain articles exported from the 
United States into Mexico should be admitted 
free of all import duties, whether Federal or local; 
but it did not prohibit, as has been generally sup- 
posed, the several Mexican States from taxing 
such imports, in common with other articles, when 
the same are found within their jurisdiction ! And 
it is claimed that such taxes are not in the nature 
of import duties. But, be this as it may, the effect 
on the internal commerce of Mexico is substan- 
tially one and the same. 

The Mexican tariff system also provides for the 
taxation of exports, notably on the following prod- 
ucts : gold bullion, one fourth of one per cent; 
silver bullion, one half of one per cent ; coined 
gold and silver, having already paid at the mint, 
exempt ; orchil (a lichen from which a fine purple 
dye is obtained), § ID per ton;* wood for cabinet- 
pal custom-house officers, so as to lessen in a degree the interruptions 
and vexations incident to the system. But as the Federal Govern- 
ment and some of the States have since then authorized public im- 
provements to an extent that the state of their finances did not justify, 
and have in consequence increased taxes in all possible forms through- 
out the republic, the prospect for the complete suppression, or even of 
any essential modification, of this oppressive system of taxation is not 
flattering. 

* The effect of taxation in destroying trade and commerce is strik- 
ingly illustrated by the circumstance that when Mexico imposed in 
1878 an export tax of $10 per ton on orchil, the shipments of this arti- 



A RELIC OF MEDI/EVALISM. 173 

work and construction, $2.50 per 31.3 American 
cubic feet. Small export duties are also imposed 
on coffee and heniquen. A revision of the Mexi- 
can tariff, with a view of modifying certain of its 
exorbitant duties, more especially those levied on 
the importation of wines and liquors and certain 
articles of food, has been recently recommended 
(1885) to the Government by a committee of dele- 
gates of prominent men of business from different 
parts of the republic. 

/^he existence in a state of the New World of 
a system of taxation so antagonistic to all modern 
ideas, and so destructive of all commercial free- 
dom, is certainly very curious, and prompts to 
the following reflections :v First, how great were 
the wisdom and foresight of the framers of the 
Constitution of the United States in providing, 
at the very commencement of the Federal Union, 
that no power to tax in this manner, and for 
their own use or benefit, should ever be permitted 
to the States that might compose it (Article I, sec- 
tion 10). Second, how did such a system come 
to be ingrafted on Mexico, for it is not a modern 
contrivance ? (AH are agreed that it is an old- 
time practice and a legacy of Spanish domination. 

clc, which had averaged about $200,000 per annum, and afforded 
profitable employment to the peasantry of Lower California, at once 
fell off to $54,000 in iSyg-'So, and to $15,000 in i88o-'8i. Since then 
exportations have considerably increased. 



174 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

But, further than this, may it not be another of 
those numerous relics of European media^vahsm 
which, having utterly disappeared in the countries 
of their origin, seem to have become embalmed, as 
it were, in what were the old Spanish provinces 
of America — a system filtered down through Span- 
ish traditions from the times when the imposition 
of taxes and the regulation of local trade were 
regarded by cities and communities in the light of 
an affirmation of their right to self-government, 
and as a barrier against feudal interference and 
tyranny ; and when the idea of protecting indus- 
try through like devices was also not limited as 
now to international commerce, but was made 
applicable to the commercial intercourse of cities 
and communities of the same country, and even 
to separate trades or "guilds" of the same city? 
Whether such speculations have any warrant in 
fact or not, it is at least certain that we have in 
the Mexico of to-day a perfect example of what 
was common in Europe in the middle ages ; name- 
ly, of protection to separate interests (through 
taxation) carried out to its fullest and logical ex- 
tent, and also of its commercial and industrial con- 
sequences.* ^ 

* " The laws of Old Spain, based on the civil law of the Romans, 
modified by the Goths, Visigoths, the Church, and the Moors, were 
sufficiently confused when they were introduced into Mexico some 
three hundred and sixty years ago. Since that date, with the addition 



TAXES ON SALES. 



175 



So much for the tariff system of Mexico. The 
" excise " or " internal revenue " system of the 
country is no less extraordinary. It is essentially 
a tax on sales, collected in great part through the 
agency of stamps — a repetition of the old " alca- 
vala " tax of Spain,* which Adam Smith, in his 
" Wealth of Nations," describes as one of the worst 
forms of taxation that could be infhcted upon a 
country, and as largely responsible for the decay 
of Spanish manufactures and agriculture. C Thus 
the Mexican law, re-enacted January, 1885, imposes 
a tax of '* one half of one per cent upon the value 
in excess of $20 of transactions of buying or sell- 
ing of every kind of merchandise, whether at 
wholesale or retail, in whatever place throughout 
the whole republic." Also, one half of one per 
cent " on all sales and resales of country or city 
property ; upon all exchanges of movable or im- 
movable property ; on mortgages, transfers, or 
gifts, collateral or bequeathed inheritances ; on 

of the special legislation of the Spanish crown for the Indies, the 
edicts, decrees, and enactments of conquerors, viceroys, bishops, juntas, 
councils, emperors, military chiefs, dictators, presidents, and con- 
gresses, the acts of one hundred and thirty-six governments, many of 
them initiated and perishing amid violent domestic revolutions, and 
the storms of civil and foreign wars, it is not surprising that Mexican 
law is embarrassed with antiquated forms and anomalies, confusion, 
contradictions, and uncertainties." — Consul Strother, " Report to the 
United States Department of State, 1884." 

* The very name is yet essentially kept up in Mexico, where the 
tax is sometimes designated as the " alcabala," 



176 A STCDY OF MEXICO. 

bonds, rents of farms, when the rent exceeds $2,000 
annually ; and on all contracts with the Federal, 
State, or municipal governments." Every inhab- 
itant of the republic who sells goods to the value 
of over $20 must give to the buyer " an invoice, 
note, or other document accrediting the purchase," 
and affix to the same, and cancel, a stamp corre- 
sponding to the value of the sale. Sales at retail 
are exempt from this tax ; and retail sales are 
defined to be " sales made with a single buyer, 
whose value does not exceed $20. The reunion, 
in a single invoice, of various parcels, every one 
of which does not amount to $20, but which in 
the aggregate exceed that quantity," remains sub- 
ject to the tax. Retail sales in the public markets, 
or by ambulatory sellers, or licensed establishments 
whose capital does not exceed $300, are also ex- 
empt. Tickets of all descriptions — railroad, the- 
atre, etc. — must have a stamp, as must each page 
of the reports of meetings ; each leaf of a mer- 
chant's ledger, day or cash book, and every cigar 
sold singly, which must be delivered to the buyer 
in a stamped wrapper. Sales of spirits at whole- 
sale pay three per cent ; gross receipts of city 
railroads, four per cent ; public amusements, two 
per cent upon the amount paid for entrance ; play- 
ing-cards, fifty per cent — paid in stamps — on the 
retail price ; and manufactured tobacco a variety 



TAXES ON LAND AND OCCUPATIONS. 177 

of taxes, proportioned to quality and value. Mer- 
cantile drafts are taxed at $10 per $1,000, which 
means a dollar on every hundred. J 

XFarms, haciendas, and town estates are required 
t(X be taxed at the rate of $3 per each $1,000 of 
the valuation, but such is the influence of the 
land-owners that the valuation is almost nominal. 
In Vera Cruz the rate is reported at about 2 
mills on the dollar for the most productive por- 
tions of country estates ; while in the Pacific State 
of Colima the rate is said to be i^ per cent. 
Land and buildings not actually producing in- 
come are exempt from taxation, notwithstanding 
they may be continually enhancing in value.* \ 

In the towns, this system of infinitesimal taxa- 
tion is indefinitely repeated, the towns acting as 
collectors of revenue for the Federal and State 
governments, as well as for their own municipal 
requirements. All industries pay a monthly fee : 
as tanneries, 50 cents; soap-factories, $1. So also 
all shops for the sale of goods pay according to 
their class, from a few dollars down to a few 
cents per month. Each beef animal, on leaving a 
town, pays 50 cents; each fat pig, 25 cents; each 
sheep, 12 cents; each load of corn, fruit, vegeta- 

* This practice of exempting unoccupied realty from taxation also 
prevails in Portugal. The theory there in justification of the practice 
is, that the use of a thing defines its measure of value, and that to tax 
unused property is a process of confiscation. 



178 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

blcs, or charcoal, 6 cents (as a supposed road- 
tax), and so on ; and, on entering another town, 
all these exactions are repeated. A miller, in 
Mexico, it is said, is obliged to pay thirty-two 
separate taxes on his wheat,- before he can get it 
from the field and offer it, in the form of flour, 
on the market, for consumption. As a matter of 
necessity, furthermore, every center of population 
— small and big, city, town, or hamlet — swarms 
with petty officials, who are paid to see that not 
an item of agricultural produce, of manufactured 
goods, or an operation of trade or commerce or 
even a social event, like a fandango, a christen- 
ing, a marriage, or a funeral, escapes the pay- 
ment of tribute.* 

( * The following is a copy of the tariff of the city of Guerrero — one 
hundred and fifty miles southeast of the capital — for articles exported 
from the city, on account of its municipal fund, as published in the 
year 1883 : 

1. For every kind of animal killed for purpose of speculation $ .25 

2. For every head of horses, mules, or cattle taken out of the 

counti7 I.oo 

3. For every head of horses, mules, or cattle taken into the in- 

terior 1=32 

4. For every fat pork which is taken out of town or which is 

killed in town for purpose of speculating "^M 

5. For every beef-hide taken out of town 03M 

6. For every thousand head of sheep or goats taken out of the 

country 12.00 

7. For every thousand head of sheep or goats taken outside 

of the limits of the town i.oo 

8. For every horse, mule, or jackass taken out of the limits of 

the town 25 



MUNICIPAL TAXATION. 



179 



Great complaint is made, in the Territory of 
Lower California and probably elsewhere, at the 
existence and rigid enforcement of a tax-law known 

9. The mares and shc-asses taken out of the country, for 

each 2.00 

10. Each mare and she-ass taken out of the municipality to 

any other part of the republic will pay 25 

11. Every arroba (25 pounds) of wood raised within the juris- 

diction of the town will pay for its extraction to any 

part of the republic, or outside of its limits ol3^ 

12. Each skin of sheep or goats, for its extraction to other 

ports, will pay oi3^ 

13. Each cart which enters town for speculative purposes will 

pay " el piso " 123^ 

14. Every hundred of sugar-cane, to enter 123^ 

15. Every hundred dollars' worth of earthenware of the coun- 

try will pay one per cent to enter i.oo 

16. Every hundred dollars' worth of foreign earthenware will 

pay one and a half per cent to enter the town 1.50 

17. Every hundred oranges that are sold 12^^ 

18. All sorts of wood, worked, of this or other countries, to 

enter, will pay for each foot 01 

19. Each thousand of garlic or onions will pay i.oo 

20. Each gallon of alcoholic liquor, to enter o<Jj^ 

21. Each gallon of other wines or vinegar, to enter 01 J^ 

22. Every package of dry merchandise, to enter I23>^ 

23. All sorts of grain, with the exception of com, will pay to 

enter, on each arroba. 02 

24. Every billiard-table will pay monthly 2.00 1 

25. All other establishments of whatever kind will pay, ac- "*' 

cording to the pleasure of the town authorities, a month- 
ly tax, according to the amount of their capital. All 
articles which are not contained in the present tariff re- 
main subject to the pleasure of the authorities of the 
city of Guerrero to levy upon them a contribution which 
they think right and just. 
In addition to all this, every male in the State between the ages of 

eighteen and sixty-six pays twelve cents monthly as a personal tax. . 

Common laborers pay in addition six cents monthly as a tax for mate- 



l8o --/ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

as '' port a ego," the operation of which is thus de- 
scribed byVUnited States Consul Turner, in a re- 
cent report to the State Department: "Under the 
present general tariff, lumber, horses, cattle, hogs, 
and some other products, can be imported from 
foreign countries free of duty ; but, if any of 
these same products are brought here (La Paz) 
from an}- part of jNIexico, an excessive duty is 
imposed upon them. Cattle may be landed here 
from California free of duty ; but, if a poor 
' ranchero * brings a cow to La Paz to sell, he 
must pay a duty of $2 upon it — that is, if he 
brings it by water ; for it is one of the curiosi- 
ties of this regulation that all articles introduced 
by land enter free, and all brought by water 
pay duties. The enforcement of this law is uni- 
versally complained of, all over the Teriitory, and 
induces all to become smugglers." | 

Note. — [To understand the full meaning of these revenue regxila- 
tions, it must be remembered that the Mexican Territory of Lower 
California is separated from the other territory of Mexico by the Gulf 
of California ; and therefore, whatever enters the territory from the 
other parts of the republic must be transported by water.] 

In fact, trade is so hampered by this system 
of taxation, that one can readily understand and 

ri.-il improvements, while all persons receiving a yearly s.nlary of $150 
and upward pay twelve cents per month. Professional men also pay 
from fifty cents to two dollars per month according to their vocation. 
Salaries to public officials arc assessed one and a half per cent annual 
tax. 



OBSTACLES TO TAX REFORM. i8l 

accept the assertion that has been made, that 
people with capital in Mexico really dread to 
enter into business, and prefer to hoard their 
wealth, or restrict their investments to land 
(which, as before pointed out, is practically ex- 
empt from taxation), rather than subject them- 
selves to the never-ending inquisitions and annoy- 
ances which are attendant upon almost every 
active employment of persons and capital, even 
were all other conditions favorable. Mexico, from 
the influence of this system of taxation alone, must, 
therefore, remain poor and undeveloped ; and no 
evidence or argument to the contrary can in any 
degree weaken this assertion. Doubtless there 
are many intelligent people in Mexico who recog- 
nize the gravity of the situation, and are most 
anxious that something should be done in the 
way of reform. But what can be done? If auto- 
cratic powers were to be given to a trained 
financier, thoroughly versed in all the principles 
of taxation and of economic sciences, and con- 
versant with the results of actual experiences, the 
problem of making things speedily and radically 
better in this department of the Mexican state is 
so difficult that he might well shrink from grap- 
pling with it. 

In the first place, the great mass of the 
Mexican people have little or no visible, tan- 



1 82 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

g-iblc property ^vhich is capable of direct assess- 
ment. 

Again, in any permanent system of taxation, 
taxes in every country or community, in com- 
mon with all the elements of the cost of produc- 
tion and subsistence — wages, profits, interest, de- 
preciation, and materials — must be substantially 
drawn from each year's product. Now, the an- 
nual product of Mexico is comparatively very 
small. Thus, for example, Mr. Sutton, United 
States consul-general at Matamoros, as before 
noticed, has shown that the annual product of 
the single State of South Carolina is absolutely 
two and a half times — or, proportionally to area, 
twenty-five times — as valuable as the annual prod- 
uct of the entire northern half of Mexico ; and 
the Argentine Republic of South America, with 
only one third of the population of Mexico, has 
a revenue twenty per cent greater, and double 
the amount of foreign commerce. Product being 
small, consumption must of necessity be also 
small. Ex-Consul Strother (report to State De- 
partment, United States, 1885) says: "The aver- 
age cost of living (food and drink) to a laboring- 
man in the city of Mexico is about twenty-five 
cents per day ; in the country from twelve and 
a half to eighteen cents. The average annual 
cost of a man's dress is probably not over five 



POVERTY OF THE MASSES. 183 

dollars ; that of a woman double that sum, with 
an undetermined margin for gewgaws and cheap 
jewelry." Mr. Lambert, United States consul at 
San Bias, reports under date of May, 1884: "The 
average laborer and mechanic of this country may 
be fortunate enough, if luck be not too unchari- 
table toward him, to get a suit of tanned goat- 
skin, costing about six dollars, which will last 
him as many years." 

Consul Campbell, of Monterey, under date of 
October, 1885, reports: The Mexican laborer is at 
but small cost for his clothing. He wears instead 
of shoes, sandals, which are nothing more than 
pieces of sole-leather cut to the size of the foot 
and tied on by strings of dressed hide. His clothes 
are made of the coarse, heavy linen of the coun- 
try, and a full suit costs him $2.50. He always 
carries a blanket, which in many cases is woven 
by the women of his family, but, in case he buys 
it, costing from $2.50 to $10; but, as one blanket 
will last him many years, it adds but little to his 
yearly expenses. The total cost of clothing for 
one year will not exceed $10 or $12. He is at 
an equally small expense for the necessary cloth- 
ing for his family. Four or five dollars a year will 
provide one or two calico dresses for his wife ; and 
his children, when clothed at all, are but scantily 
covered with the remnants laid aside by the par- 



1 84 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

ents. Of household goods he is ignorant. A few 
untanned hides are used for beds, and dressed 
goat or sheep skins serve for mattress and cover- 
ing. 

The food of the masses consists mainly of 
agricultural products — corn {tortillas), beans {fri- 
j'oli's), and fruits, which are for the most part the 
direct results of the labor of the consumer, and 
not obtained through any mechanism of purchase 
or exchange. 

Persons conversant with the foreign commerce 
of Mexico are also of the opinion that not more 
than five per cent of its population buy at the 
present time any imported article whatever; or 
that, for all purposes of trade in American or 
European manufactures, the population is much in 
excess of half a million. Revenue in Mexico from 
any tariff on imports must, therefore, be also lim- 
ited ; and this limitation is rendered much greater 
than it need be by absurdly high duties ; which 
(as notably is the case of cheap cotton fabrics) 
enrich the smuggler and a few mill-proprietors, 
to the great detriment of the national exchequer. 

It is clear, therefore, that the basis available 
to the Government for obtaining revenue through 
the taxation of articles of domestic consumption, 
cither in the processes of production, or through 
the machinery of distribution, is of necessity very 



CURIOUS TAX EXPERIENCES. 185 

narrow ; and that if the state is to get anything, 
either directly or indirectly, from this source, there 
would really seem to be hardly any method open 
to it, other than that of an infinitesimal, inquisi- 
torial system of assessment and obstruction, akin 
to what is already in existence.* 

Note. — This curious tax experience of Mexico, although especially 
striking and interesting, is not exceptional, but finds a parallel, in a 
greater or less degree, in all countries of low civilization, small accumu- 
lation of wealth, and sluggish society movement. Thus, in the British 
island and colony of Jamaica, populated mainly by emancipated blacks 
and their descendants (554,132 out of a total of 580,804 in 1881), who 
own little or no land, and through favorable climatic conditions require 
the minimum of clothing and shelter, and little of food other than what 
is produced spontaneously, or by very little labor, the problem of how 
to raise revenue by any form of taxation, for defraying the necessary 
expenses of government, has been not a little embarrassing. For the 
year 1884, the revenue raised from taxation on this island represented 
an average assessment of about S3. 40 per head of the entire population ; 
but of this amount an average of about fifty cents only per head could be 
obtained from any excise or internal taxation ; and this mainly through 
the indirect agency of licenses and stamps, and not by any direct assess- 
ment. The balance of receipts was derived from import and export 
duties, and from special duties on rum, which last furnished nearly one 
fourth of the entire revenue. During the same year the average taxa- 
tion of the people of the United States — Federal, State, and municipal — 
was in excess of fourteen dollars per capita. A condition of things in 
British India, analogous to that existing in Jamaica, has for many years 
necessitated the imposition of very high taxes upon salt, as almost the 
only method by which the mass of the native population could be com- 
pelled to contribute anything whatever toward the support of their 

* The experience of Mexico in respect to taxation ought to be es- 
pecially instructive to all that large class of statesmen and law-makers 
in the United States who believe that the only equitable system of taxa- 
tion is to provide for an obligatory return and assessment of all property, 
and that to exempt anything is both unjust and impolitic. 



1 86 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

government ; the consumption of salt being necessary to all, and its 
production and distribution being capable of control, and so of com- 
paratively easy assessment. In short, if a man can avoid paying rent, 
make no accumulations, and will live exclusively on what he can him- 
self gather from the bounty of Nature, he can not be taxed, except by 
a capitation or poll tax ; and it would be difficult to sec how in such a 
case even such a tax could be collected. But, the moment he enters 
into society and recognizes the advantages of the division of labor and 
exchange, he begins to pay taxes, and the higher the civilization he 
enjoys the greater will be the taxes. 

LBut the greatest obstacle in the way of tax 
jrm in Mexico is to be found in tlic fact that 
a comparatively few people — not six thousand out 
of a possible ten million — own all the land, and 
constitute, in the main, the governing class of the 
country ; and the influence of this class has thus far 
been sufificiently potent to practically exempt land 
from taxation. I So long as this condition of things 
prevails, it is' difficult to see how there is ever 
going to be a middle class (as there is none now 
worthy of mention), occupying a position inter- 
mediate between the rich and a vast ignorant 
lower class, that take no interest in public affairs, 
and are only kept from turbulence through mili- 
tary restraint. Such a class, in every truly civil- 
ized and progressive country, is numerically the 
greatest, and comprises the great producers; and 
because the great producers, the great consumers 
and tax-payers — for all taxes ultimately fall upon 
consumption — and so are the ones most interested 
in the promotion and maintenance of good gov- 



INDIFFERENCE OF THE PEOPLE. 187 

ernment. A tax-policy, however, which would 
compel the land-owners to cut up and sell their 
immense holdings, especially if they are unwilling- 
to develop them, would be the first step toward 
the creation of such a middle class. But it is 
not unlikely that Mexico would have to go through 
one more revolution, and that the worst one she 
has yet experienced, before any such result could 
be accomplished. At present, furthermore, there 
is no evidence that the mass of the Mexican people, 
who would be most benefited by any wise scheme 
for the partition of the great estates and for tax 
reform, feel any interest whatever in the matter, 
or would vigorously support any leader of the 
upper class that might desire to take the initia- 
tive in promoting such changes. And herein is 
the greatest discouragement to every one who 
wishes well for the country. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Federal budget — Receipts and expenditures — Principal sources of 
national revenue — Foreign commerce — Coinage of the Mexican 
mints — Imports and exports — The United States the largest cus- 
tomer for Mexican products — Silver monometallism in Mexico — 
Its inconveniences and abandonment — Introduction of paper 
money — Sanitary conditions of Mexico — Terrible mortality of the 
cities of Mexico and Vera Cruz. 

The Federal budget, in respect to expendi- 
tures for the fiscal year i886-'87, as reported by 
President Diaz to the Mexican Chamber of Depu- 
ties, was as follows: 

Congress $1,052,144 

Executive Department 49i25i 

Judiciar)' 434,892 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs 419,828 

Ministry of Interior 3>539.364 

Ministry of Justice 1, 3331696 

Ministry of Public Works 4,711,771 

Ministry of Finance. 12,004,270 

Ministry of War and Navy 12,464,500 

Total 136,009,716 

The estimates of receipts were uncertain. It 
was hoped, if business recovered, that they would 
reach $33,000,000; and the Government promised 



THE NATIONAL FINANCES. 



189 



to try and restrict the national expenditures to 
this amount. 

The following are the reported receipts and 
expenditures of the repubhc for the years 1880- 
'81 to i883-'84 inclusive: 



YEARS. 


Receipts. 


Expenditures. 


i8So-'8r 


$26,550,000 
30,400,000 
32,850,000 
37,620,000 


$24,900,000 
30,590,000 
37,580,000 
42,760,000 


i88i-'S2 


1882-83... • • 


1883-84 





As for the sources of national revenue, the cus- 
toms are understood to yield about one half ; taxes 
on sales and stamps, some $5,000,000 ; post-offices 
and telegraph lines, $650,000 ; lotteries, $800,000 ; 
while the receipts from taxes levied by the States 
(mainly on sales also) amount to from $8,000,000 
to $10,000,000, or about one half the receipts from 
customs. 

In respect to the foreign commerce of Mexico, 
a report on the " Commercial Relations of the 
United States," issued by the United States De- 
partment of State in 1883, says: "Owing to the 
system, or, rather, to the lack of system, in regard 
to the collection and publication of customs re- 
turns by the national Government, it is impossi- 
ble for our consuls in Mexico to supply any trust- 
worthy statistics concerning the foreign commerce 



190 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

of the republic." Mr. Garden, Consul for Great 
Britain, in a report to his Government in 1883, 
on the trade and commerce of Mexico, says, in 
reference to the difficulties encountered in inves- 
tigating this subject: "Since 1874 no attempt has 
been made to do more than estimate the value 
of imports by that of customs receipts ; which, 
seeing the constant alterations of and additions 
to the tarifT, and the fluctuations in the quantities 
of goods introduced free of duty, can necessarily 
only afford a very imperfect basis for calculation." 
In respect to exports the information is much 
more satisfactory. An approximative estimate of 
the results for 1880 was as follows: 

Exports $32,663,554 

Imports 24,003,372 

Total $56,666,926 * 

The precious metals — coin, bullion, and ores — 
always constitute the great bulk of what Mexico 
exports ; and the proportion of agricultural prod- 
ucts or other merchandise exported is surprising- 
ly small. Thus, out of the total value of exports 
for 1884, estimated by Consul-General Sutton at 
$39,716,000, nearly three fourths, or $28,452,000, 
were credited to the precious metals, and only 
$ 1 1,264,000 to all other commodities ; and of these 

* Since this date the aggregate of the exports and imports of 
Mexico has without doubt very considerably increased. 



FOREIGN COMMERCE. 



191 



last the largest proportion always consists of arti- 
cles produced near the seaboard, or near the line 
of the " City of Mexico and Vera Cruz Railroad." 
During recent years, and since the construction 
of the so-called American railroads, the increase 
in the exports from Mexico, of products other 
than the precious metals, has, however, been very 
notable, and is apparently progressive. But the 
fact that the exports of Mexico always largely 
exceed her imports, that the great bulk of the 
exports are always the precious metals, and that 
the excess of imports does not represent payment 
for interest to any extent on any national foreign 
indebtedness, naturally creates a suspicion that the 
whole (export) transaction is something abnormal ; 
which may find an explanation in the existence of 
a class of wealthy absentee landlords, or propri- 
etors, who, living permanently in Paris or Spain, 
draw rents, tolls, and profits from their Mexican 
properties, and invest or expend the same in other, 
or foreign countries. The bulk of the coinage of 
Mexico — both of silver and of gold — is exported 
almost as soon as it leaves the mints. Thus, al- 
though the average annual coinage of the Mexican 
mints from 1876 to 1880 was $22,524,694, and since 
then has been larger ($25,610,000 in i88i-'82), the 
amount of coin in actual circulation in the coun- 
try is believed to have never been in excess of 
9 



192 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



$15,000,000 or $20,000,000. Much of the Mexican 
coined silver has, as is well known, been hereto- 
fore in large demand to meet the world's require- 
ments for trade with China ; but what has come 
back to Mexico for it in exchange is somewhat of 
a commercial puzzle. 

The present annual value of the total import 
trade of Mexico is probably not in excess of $35,- 
000,000, of which the United States already con- 
trols a large proportion. Thus, for the year 1883, 
the returned value of all merchandise exported 
from the United States to Mexico was $16,587,630; 
of which $14,370,992 was " domestic " and $2,216,- 
638 " foreign " merchandise. This was, however, 
a year of very active railroad construction, with 
an abnormal employment of Mexican labor, and 
large disbursements of American capital in the 
country. Since then there has been a marked 
falling off in exports from the United States (less 
than $13,000,000 in 1884), which has been attrib- 
uted partly to the withholding of orders in antici- 
pation of the ratification of a commercial treaty 
between the two countries, and partly to the great 
depression of business consequent on the large de- 
cline in the price of silver.* 

* How jjreatly the depreciation of silver affects the busine<.s inter- 
ests of a country like Mexico, which not only uses a silver currency 
almost exclusively, but also relies on silver as one of its chief exports 
(i. e., for the payment of imports), is shown by the circumstance that 



EXPORTS AND IMPORTS. 



193 



Although, according to the above figures, the 
United States appears to take the lead of all other 
nations in respect to the import trade of Mexico, 
it is claimed by the English consular officials that, 
if the necessary figures were obtainable, it would 
be demonstrated that the real exports of England 
and France to Mexico are larger than they are 
reported. " All that the United States exports to 
Mexico is of necessity sent direct, as it would be 
unreasonable to suppose that any American goods 
would be sent via Europe, and thus figure in the in- 
direct trade of other countries. On the other hand, 
it is certain that all the indirect trade through the 
United States is European, and it is probable that 
a fair share of it consists of English and French 
merchandise ; and this is especially the case when 
so much material for the construction of new rail- 
ways is being imported from England through the 
Texan ports and sent by rail across the frontier." 
— Report of Consul Garden, 1883. 

the Directors of the " Vera Cruz and City of Mexico Railroad " reported 
at their annual meeting in London, on the 25th of May, 1886, that the 
loss of the company in exchange for the half-year ending December 31, 
1885, was ^29,641 ; on the gross earnings for the same period, of 
;^302,I34. They further add : " The average rate of exchange fell 
during the half-year from 4i-46(/. per dollar, at which it stood at the 
end of June 1865, to 40-45^., and since the beginning of the current 
half-year (1886) the rate has further fallen, and at the present time is 
38-76^/. On equal remittances made a year previously, when the aver- 
age rate was 42-39, the loss would have been only ;/^2i,669, and thus 
an additional burden of ;[C7.972 has been imposed on the shareholders." 



194 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



In regard to the exports from Mexico there is 
less difference of opinion, and it seems to be agreed 
that the United States and England are the chief 
consumers of Mexican products, and that Ger- 
many, France, and Spain hold a subordinate place 
as buyers from Mexico. For the year 1884-85 the 
value of Mexican exports — precious metals and 
merchandise — has been estimated as high as $45,- 
600,000; of which $25,053,000, or 55 per cent, went 
to the United States ; $15,367,000, or 32.9 per cent, 
to England ; 4.8 per cent to France ; 3 per cent to 
Germany, and 2.6 per cent to Spain. It there- 
fore follows, if these figures are correct, that the 
United States buys more of Mexican merchandise 
than all the other nations of the world together. 
Excluding the exports of the precious metals, the 
proportion of exports in favor of the United States 
would undoubtedly be much greater. 

In a report to the State Department (May, 
1884), ex-Consul-General Strother thus briefl}' sums 
up the obstacles (heretofore noticed more in de- 
tail) which stand in the way of the future devel- 
opment of the commerce of Mexico. He says : 
[ " Topographically considered, Mexico labors under 
many serious disadvantages to commerce, whether 
external or internal. Her coasts on both oceans 
are broad belts of intolerable heat, disease, and 
aridity, and, except a few small seaport towns, 



OBSTACLES TO COMMERCE. 



195 



are nearly uninhabited. On the whole extent of 
her coast-line there are but two natural harbors 
available for first-class modern merchant-vessels — 
those of Anton Lizado on the Gulf, and Acapulco 
on the Pacific. All the other so-called seaports 
now used by commerce are open roadsteads, dan- 
gerous in rough weather, and only approachable 
in lighters, or are located on rivers, the entrances 
to which are closed to ocean traders by shallows 
or sand-bars. The natural obstructions and diffi- 
culties in the way of inland traffic are scarcely 
less observable. Mexico is entirely wanting in 
navigable rivers and lakes. Her fertile districts, 
capital cities, and centers of population are sepa- 
rated from each other by long distances, arid dis- 
tricts, immense chains of m.ountains, and vast 
barrancas washed out by her rapidly descending 
water-courses. These difficulties were partially 
overcome by the Spaniards, who constructed a 
noble system of highways and bridges extending 
between the principal cities of the viceroyalty, 
but from the nature of the soil they were im- 
mensely expensive to construct and difficult to 
maintain. During the long and ruinous wars for 
independence, and the civil wars which followed, 
these highways went rapidly to destruction ; and, 
notwithstanding recent repairs and reconstructions, 
the general condition of Mexican highways is not 



196 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

encouraging to cither commerce or travel. But 
all these natural and accidental disadvantages com- 
bined may be regarded as nothing in compari- 
son with the crushing and suffocating influences 
brought to bear on Mexican commerce, foreign 
and domestic, by the exclusive policy imposed by 
the mother-country during the three centuries of 
Mexico's colonial vassalage ; and, secondly, by the 
system of internal and interstate duties and cus- 
tom-houses, inherited from Old Spain, which still 
practically vexes the internal commerce of the re- 
public." ' 

Silver Monomctallisin. — Until within a very re- 
cent period, Mexico has furnished to the world a 
most curious and interesting example of a some- 
what populous country conducting its exchanges 
almost exclusively by means of a monometallic, 
silver currency ; no other form of money, with the 
exception of a small copper coinage, having been 
used or recognized. The results were most m- 
structive. The bulk and weight of the silver cur- 
rency constituted a most serious embarrassment to 
commerce and all money transactions. Thus, if 
one proposed to trade, even to a retail extent, or 
go on a journey, a bag of coin had to be carried. 
If it were proposed to pay out a hundred dol- 
lars, the weight of the bag would be five and 
a half pounds; if two hundred dollars, eleven 



SILVER MONOMETALLISM. 197 

pounds ; if five hundred, twenty-seven pounds. 
About the doors of the principal banking-houses 
were to be seen groups of professional porters 
{cargadorcs), who gained a livelihood by carrying 
loads of coin in ixtle bags from one part of the 
city to another. Where collections or payments 
were to be large, and the distance to be trav- 
ersed considerable, regular organizations of armed 
men, and suitably equipped animals — known as 
^^ conduct as'' — were permanently maintained; and 
severe and bloody fights with bandits were of 
common occurrence. At the great cotton-mill at 
Queretaro, as already noted, the organization of 
a condiicta — men, arms, and horses — for making 
collections, was as much an essential of the busi- 
ness as the looms and the spindles. " It was ob- 
viously impossible to carry even a moderate 
amount of such money with any concealment, or 
to carr}?- it at all with any comfort; and the un- 
avoidable exhibition of it, held in laps, chinking 
in trunks or boxes, standing in bags, and poured 
out in streams at the banks and commercial 
houses, was one of the features of life in Mexi- 
co," and undoubtedly constituted a standing temp- 
tation for robbery. This state of affairs continued 
until 1880. The Government, the banks, the mer- 
chants, the railroad offices, and private individ- 
uals transacted all their business in silver coin ; 



198 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

and all promises to pay, notes, bonds, mortgages, 
etc., were drawn up with the invariable pro- 
vision, "payable in hard dollars {j)csos fucrtes), to 
the exclusion of all pajjcr money existing, or that 
may be hereafter created." The only bank-notes 
issued at that date were large bills of the " Bank 
of London, Mexico, and South America" — a branch 
of which, unchartered, was established in Mexico 
in 1864. Their circulation was extremely limited ; 
small traders and the people at large declining to 
accept them. Since then, the " Monte de Pie- 
dad " (the national pawnbroking establishment), a 
" national " bank, and various banks of foreign in- 
corporators, have issued notes ; and the practice 
thus initiated has rapidly extended to all sections 
of the republic. The basis of issue of all the 
regularly chartered banks is understood to be 
substantially the same as that of the " Banco Na- 
cional Mexicano" (Mexican National Bank), which 
is authorized to issue three millions of paper for 
every million of coin or bullion in its coffers, 
which notes are legal tender from individuals to 
the Government, but not from the Government 
to individuals, or between individuals. This bank 
is chartered for thirty years, and is exempted 
from taxation during that period. Its present 
circulation has been reported at over $5,000,000. 
The possibilities, if not probabilities, therefore, 



PAPER MONEY. 1 99 

now are, that a flood of paper will ultimately 
drive silver out of circulation in Mexico ; and 
that neither popular traditions nor prejudices, nor 
the adverse influence of the mints (which in 
Mexico are private establishments), nor its great 
silver-mining interests (at present the most im- 
portant business interest of Mexico), can have any 
effect in checking the paper currency movement. 



RELATION OF THE SANITARY CONDITION OF MEXI- 
CO TO ITS COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

The sanitary condition of every country con- 
stitutes an important element in determining its 
commercial development, and Mexico especially 
illustrates the truth of this proposition. The coast- 
lands of the republic are hot and unhealthy. The 
more elevated portions, where nine tenths of the 
people live, are claimed to be unsurpassed in 
salubrity. Strangers from northern latitudes, and 
accustomed to the ordinary levels of human resi- 
dence, are liable, on coming to the Mexican pla- 
teau, to a process of acclimation, which, although 
often very trying, is rarely attended with any 
very serious consequences. Horse-dealers from 
Texas state that they lose from twelve to twenty 
per cent of the horses brought to the city of 
Mexico for sale, solely from the climatic in- 



200 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

flucnccs contingent on its great altitude. The 
sanitary conditions of the two chief commercial 
centers of the republic, namely, the city of Mexico 
and of Vera Cruz, are, however, so extraordinary 
and so obstructive to national progress that any 
review of the country would be imperfect that 
neglected to notice them. The evil in the case 
of the former is local and not climatic, and is 
due to the circumstance that the site of the city 
is " a bowl in the mountains," so that drainage 
from it is now, and always has been, very diffi- 
cult. And, as years have passed, and the popu- 
lation living within the bowl has multiplied, the 
evil has continually increased, until Lake Tezcoco, 
which borders the city, and on which Cortes built 
and floated war-galleys, has been nearly filled up 
WMth drainage deposits which have been carried 
into it through an elaborate system of cit)'^ sewers. 
If these sewers ever had fall enough to drain them, 
they have, as the result of the filling up of this 
lake, little or none now, and the result is that 
they have become in effect an immense system of 
cess-pools; while the soil, on which from 250,000 
to 300,000 people live, has become permeated 
with stagnant water and filth inexpressible. And 
were it not for the extreme dr3'ness and rarefac- 
tion of the air, which, as before pointed out, 
prevent the putrefaction of animal substances, 



SANITARY CONDITION OF MEXICO. 20 1 

and seem to hinder the propagation of the germs 
of disease, the city must long ago have been 
visited with plague, and perhaps have been ren- 
dered absolutely uninhabitable. And, even under 
existing circumstances, the average duration of 
life in the city of Mexico is estimated to be but 
26.4 years. Typhoid fever prevails all the year 
round, and is especially virulent at the end of 
the dry season, when the heat is the greatest. 
And, surprising as it may seem, with a climate 
of perpetual spring and an elevation of 7,500 feet 
above the sea-level, lung and malarial diseases 
hold a prominent place among the causes of 
death. According to the reports of the Board 
of Health of the Mexican capital for April and 
May of the present year (1886), thirty-three per 
cent of the weekly mortality at that season was 
to be refei'red to typhoid and other forms of 
gastric fever, and twenty per cent to consump- 
tion and pneumonia. In the year 1877, when a 
tj^phus epidemic prevailed, the city's mortality 
was reported to have been as high as 53.2 per 
thousand as compared with an average death- 
rate of 24.6 in Paris for the same year. "A dis- 
tinguished member of the medical faculty of 
Mexico has lately published a report, in which 
he demonstrates, by comparative statistical tables, 
that the annual mortality of the city is increasing 



202 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

to such an extent as already to counterbalance 
the natural movement of the population, and, if 
not checked in time, as threatening the race."* 
— "United States Consular Reports," No. 3, 1881, 
p. 18. 

This condition of affairs is not due, as some 
might infer, to any improvidence or want of 
enterprise on the part of the Mexicans, for the 
evil has long been recognized, and at present 
especially interests the Government. But the 
difficulties in the way of applying an efficacious 
remedy are very great, and engineers are not 
fully agreed as to the best method for attaining 
the desired result. " For such is the nature of 
the plain upon which Mexico is built, such the 
conformation of the land and the contour of the 
mountains about it, that a vast s)'stem of tunnel- 
ing and canalization would be necessary to create 
a fall sufficient to drain the valley ; and, before 
the city can be drained, the valley must be." It 
is said that one celebrated American engineer, 
whose advice was recently asked by the Govern- 
ment, reported that, if a thorough drainage could 

* Under the title of the " Great Necropolis," one of the prominent 
Mexican newspapers, the "Correo del Liines," recently said : " Undis- 
guised terror is caused by these processions of the dead which daily 
defile through the streets of Mexico. To be alive here is getting to be 
a startling phenomenon. It may be a very short time, unless energetic 
remedial measures are adopted, before the capital will have to be 
moved to another location." 



HEALTH EXPERIENCES OF TOURISTS. 



203 



be effected, the city, through a consequent shrink- 
age of vSoil, would probably tumble down. And, 
finally, the existing condition of the national and 
municipal finances is such, that it is not easy for 
the authorities to determine how the money neces- 
sary to meet the contingent great expenditures — 
estimated at about $9,000,000, or a sum equivalent 
to more than one third of the entire annual revenue 
of the General Government — is to be provided. 

It ought not to be inferred that there is special 
danger to travelers, or tourists, visiting the Mexi- 
can capital, and residing there during the winter 
months or early spring ; for experience shows 
that, with ordinary precautions in respect to loca- 
tion, diet, exercise, and exposure, health can be 
maintained there as easily as in most of the cities 
of Italy at the same seasons. One serious draw- 
back to the visitation of Mexico by English-speak- 
ing foreigners, intent on either business or pleas- 
ure, is the absence of any suitable public pro 
vision for the care or comfort of any such who 
may happen to fall victims to accident or disease. 
This condition of things is greatly aggravated in 
case of contagious diseases, when the authorities, 
on notification by the landlord of any hotel or 
boarding-house, " immediately remove the patient 
to a public pest-house, where with scores or hun- 
dreds of uncongenial companions, suffering from 



204 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

all kinds of loathsome diseases, he is placed in 
the hands of nurses whose language he probably 
can not speak or understand, and to whose food 
and manners he can not, especially in such a try- 
ing hour, become accustomed ; and where he is 
prohibited any little delicacies that might be sent 
him, and where he lies down alone, to suffer and 
perhaps to die." * In the cit}' of Mexico tiie fur- 
ther continuance of such painful experiences has 
in a great degree been prevented by the founding 
and establishment by private contributions during 
the present year (1886), of a small but suitable 
and conveniently located hospital, with provision 
for ten free beds, and two furnished . rooms for 
rental ; and these arrangements it is proposed to 
enlarge as rapidly as further contributions for the 
purpose will permit. It may be further noted 
that this enterprise was the outcome of a meeting 
of Americans and others on the anniversary of 
the birthday of Washington in 1886; was greatly 
stimulated by the generosity of a " Raymond Ex- 
cursion " party which happened to participate ; is 
now under the charge of a committee, of which 
the Rev^ John W. Butler, of the Methodist Epis- 
copal mission, is secretary ; and is a matter which 
strongly commends itself to the sympathy and 
aid of the North American and English people. 

* Circular of Mexican Hospital Committee. 



MORTALITY AT VERA CRUZ. 



205 



At Vera Cruz, the local name of which is 
" El Vomito " (a term doubtless originating from 
the continued prevalence in the town of yellow 
fever), the sanitary conditions are much worse 
than in the city of Mexico ; and the causes of 
the evil, being mainly climatic, are probably not 
removable. The statistics of mortality at this 
place, gathered and published by the United 
States Department of State, are simply appalling. 
Thus, the population of Vera Cruz in 1869 was 
returned at 13,492. The number of deaths occur- 
ring during the ten years ending September, 1880, 
was 12,219. The average duration of life in Vera 
Cruz for this period was, therefore, about eleven 
years ! Other calculations indicate the average 
annual death-rate of this place to be about ninety 
per thousand, as compared with the annual aver- 
age for all the leading cities of the United States 
for the year 1880, of 22.28 per thousand. 

The writer feels that he would be guilty of a 
grave omission, in this connection, if he failed to 
quote and also to indorse the words with which 
the United States consul, who gathered and com- 
municated these facts, thus concludes his official 
report, October, 1880: "With these awful facts 
before me, I leave it to the common judgment 
and high ideas that our law-makers have of jus- 
tice to say whether or not the salar}^ of the con- 



2o6 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

sul who, lor eleven years, has lived in such an 
atmosphere, ought or ought not to be placed at 
least back to where it was when he was sent 
here." 

[Note. — No more striking illustration of the popular " craze " for 
public office can be found than in the circumstance that, although an 
appointment to the United States consulate at Vera Cruz (salary in 
1884, $3,000) is equivalent to investing in a lottery of death, in which 
the chances to an unacclimated person for drawing a capital prize are 
probably as great as one to seven or eight, no lack of applicants for 
the place is ever experienced. Thus, the consul whose appeal for an 
increase of salary is above noticed was appointed from Illinois, and 
resigned in i88i. His successor, appointed from Nebraska, died of 
yellow fever a fortnight after arrival at his post ; and since then there 
have been two appointments, one from Nebraska and one from New 
Jersey.] 



CHAPTER X. 

Political relations, present and prospective, of the United States and 
Mexico — The border population — Their interests, opinions, and 
influence — The bearing of the Monroe doctrine — The United 
States no friends on the American Continent — Opinions of other 
nations in respect to the United States — Adverse sentiments in 
Mexico — Enlightened policy of the present Mexican Government 
— Religious toleration — Recent general progress — Claims of Mexi- 
co on the kindly sympathies of the United States — Public debt of 
Mexico — Interoceanic transit and trafilc. 

The relations of the United States to Mexico 
naturally group themselves under two heads — 
political and commercial. 

The political relations of the United States 
with Mexico, whether the people or the Govern- 
ment of the former wish it or not, are going to 
be intimate and complex in the future. The 
United States is geographically married to Mexi- 
co, and there can be no divorce between the 
parties. Intercommunication between the two 
countries, which a few years ago was very diffi- 
cult, is now comparatively easy, and facilities for 
the same are rapidly increasing. And with the 
rapid increase of population in the United States, 



2o8 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

and with increased facilities for travel, the num- 
ber of people — restless, adventurous, speculative, 
or otherwise minded — who are certain to cross 
the borders into Mexico for all purposes, good 
and bad, is likely to rapidly increase in the 
future. An extensive strip of territory within 
the Mexican frontier is already dominated, to a 
great extent, for the pui-poscs of contraband 
trade, by a class of men who acknowledge no 
allegiance to any government, and whom the 
Mexican authorities tacitly admit they can not 
restrain, and who seem to find- their greatest 
profit in smuggling, and their greatest enjoyment 
in cattle-stealing, gambling, and in fights with 
the Indians or among themselves. And it is un- 
doubtedly from this rough border population, who 
no more represent Mexico than the cow-bo^-s of 
Texas and Colorado represent the people of the 
United States, that much of the denunciation and 
complaint about Mexico, its courts and its officials, 
which finds its way into the columns of American 
newspapers, originates in the first instance. 

An opinion also prevails to a considerable ex- 
tent, that there is a deliberate scheme — in the 
nature of a gigantic land-speculation — on the part 
of a not inconsiderable number of not unimpor- 
tant people, both Americans and Mexicans, and 
on both sides of the border, to do all in their 



RE VOL UTIONAR Y INDICA TIONS. 



209 



power to excite animosity and a war feeling in 
the United States against Mexico, and revolution- 
ary movements and disturbances in the northern 
States of Mexico against their central Govern- 
ment. These persons represent land ownership 
in Northern Mexico, where large tracts of Gov- 
ernment land, it is understood, have been secured 
within recent years by Mexican military and po- 
litical adventurers, and also by Americans, at 
nearly nominal prices.* So long as this land 
continues to be a part of Mexico, and subject to 
uncertainties in respect to government, it will 
command but a very low price, say from ten to 
fifty cents per acre. But let the southern bound- 
ary of the United States be once changed from 
the Rio Grande to a line from three to four 
hundred miles farther south, or to the Sierra 
Madre Mountains of Mexico, then this cheap 
Mexican land will undoubtedly rapidly appre- 
ciate in price — Texas lands near the border and 

* By an executive decree, in November, 1882, the prices of public 
lands, subject to location in the northern States of Mexico, were fixed 
as follows : In Chihuahua, equivalent to seven cents per acre ; Coa- 
huila, five cents ; San Luis Potosi, eighteen cents ; Durango, nine 
cents ; Zacatecas, thirty-six cents ; Sonora, nine cents ; Tamaulipas, 
seven cents. In the original publication the price was stated in Mexi- 
can currency, and the unit of land measure was the hectare, 2.47 acres. 
Payments, it is also understood, were allowed to favored individuals to 
be made at these low rates, in depreciated Mexican securities. These 
rates were to remain in force until 1885. 



2IO A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

inferior in quality commanding from two to 
four dollars per acre — and thus insure immense 
fortunes to the speculators and adventurers above 
mentioned. And out of such a condition of things 
political complications between the two countries, 
at no distant day, are almost certain to originate. 
Again, in asserting the " Monroe doctrine," the 
United States virtually assumes a protectorate 
over Mexico. For, whatever else the Monroe 
doctrine may cmbod}-, it unmistakably says to 
Mexico : " You shall not change your form of 
government " ; " You shall not enter into any 
European alliances " ; '* You shall not make ces- 
sions of territory, except as we (the United States) 
shall approve " ; and in return " We will not allow 
any foreign power, ourselves excepted, to bully, 
invade, or subjugate you." It may be, and is, re- 
plied that the necessity of repelling from the out- 
set any attempt at further aggrandizement of any 
European power on the North American Conti- 
nent, with its contingent menace to the mainte- 
nance of democratic institutions, sufficiently justi- 
fies the assertion of the Monroe doctrine, and is 
for the good of Mexico as well as of the United 
States. But, at the same time, if there was any 
other power on the American Continent which 
should arrogate to itself the right to dictate to or 
control the United States, as the United States 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 211 

arrogates to itself the right to dictate to or con- 
trol Mexico, and had sufficiency of power to make 
its assumptions respectable, could there be any 
doubt that the people of the Federal Union would 
regard such pretensions as a justifiable occasion 
for hostile protest and defiance? 

Every right, however, carries with it and in- 
volves a duty; and the assertion of the Monroe 
doctrine by the United States carries with it an 
obligation of duty in respect to Mexico. What 
is that duty? Manifestly the duty which the 
strong owes to the weak. Not an offensive pro- 
tectorate or meddlesome interference, but a kindly 
feeling and policy ; manifesting itself in acts that 
will tend to promote the prosperity of our neigh- 
bor, and bring her willingly in accord with our 
own interests and wishes. Has that kindly feel- 
ing ever been manifested? To answer this ques- 
tion intelligently, one needs but to get a position 
outside of ourselves — more especially anywhere 
among the other people and states of the Ameri- 
can Continent, north or south of our boundaries 
— when a little inquiry will satisfy, that the United 
States is regarded very much in the light of a 
great, overgrown, immensely powerful " bully," 
from whom no favor and scant justice are to be 
expected under any circumstances ; and who would 
never hesitate, if interest or selfish indifference 



212 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

prompted, to remorselessly trample down — in the 
old Anglo-Saxon spirit (and as it always has) — 
any weaker or inferior race, Mexicans, Indians, or 
Chinese, the poor fishermen of Newfoundland, or 
again the negro, if political sentiment in respect 
to the latter was not running for the time being 
in another direction. And it is safe to say that 
to-day there is not a nation or people on the face 
of the globe, which is brought in intimate contact 
with us, but fears and hates us ; and that, apart 
from a conservation of the principle of free gov- 
ernment, which the United States is believed to 
typify, would not be glad if the power of the Fed- 
eral Government were by some contingency to be 
impaired or destroyed. Is it not time, therefore, 
that some steps should be taken to induce a dif- 
ferent and a better state of feeling? 

But, apart from any moral or ethical view of 
the situation, an exceptional, kindly treatment of 
Mexico ought to be a permanent national policy 
on the part of the United States, for reasons purely 
of self-interest, apart from any other motives. 
What Mexico most needs and what she has never 
had, unless the present Administration be an ex- 
ception, is a stable, good government. Without 
such a government the large interests which citi- 
zens of the United States are acquiring in Mexi- 
co are sure to be imperiled. Some eighty million 



AMERICAN INVESTMENTS. 213 

dollars of American capital are understood to be 
already represented in Mexican railway-construc- 
tions ; and other large investments have undoubt- 
edly been made in mining and " ranching " in the 
country.* Now, if history is to repeat itself, and 
there are to be further domestic revolutions and 
intestine strife in Mexico, and these American 
property interests or their owners are, as a con- 
sequence, to be arbitrarily or unjustly treated — 
i. e., in the way of confiscations, or forced contribu- 
tions — resistance will follow ; claims for damages 
will be created and pressed ; national intervention 
will be sought for, and, in the present temper of 
the American people, will probably be granted — 
with a possible sequence of war and annexation. 
Certainly the last thing which the United States 
would be likely to tolerate would be political 
chaos, with involved American interests, across its 
southern border. If it be said that there is no 
danger of this, it should be remembered that the 

* According to the " Mexican Financier," the amount of American 
capital at present (1886) invested in Mexico is about $125,000,000 ; 
and the amount of similarly invested British capital not far from 
$200,000,000, distributed approximately as follows : 

Railways $56,500,000 

Public debt 56,000,000 

Banks and companies 20,000,000 

Haciendas and cattle 50,000,000 

House property 5,200,000 

Total $187,700,000 



214 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

present President of Mexico came to his office 
for the first time in 1876, through successful re- 
bellion against the regularly elected authorities ; 
during which period the " Vera Cruz Railroad " 
was destroyed at different points by the revolu 
tionists, and all travel throughout the country 
greatly interrupted and made dangerous ; and also 
that during recent years there have been con- 
stantly incipient rebellions against the central au- 
thorities. 

But good government in Mexico is a matter 
not easy of attainment. There can be no good 
government in any country without good finance, 
and the finances of Mexico are always in an em- 
barrassed condition ; and this almost necessarily for 
a variety of reasons. In the first place, as already 
pointed out, the extreme poverty of the masses, 
the absence of accumulated wealth, the sluggish- 
ness of all societary movements, the practical ex- 
emption of land from taxation, and the adoption 
of a method of taxation that blights the harvest 
that it is desired to gather, all render the collec- 
tion of an adequate annual revenue very difficult. 
Owing to the semi-civilized condition of its people, 
Mexico is necessarily obliged to support an army 
nearly double that of the United States (45,323 
rank and file in 1883), to maintain anything like 
a permanent government ; and the expenditure 



SOCIAL INFLUENCES. 215 

which this miHtary establishment entails absorbs 
more than one third part of the total revenue of 
the state, as compared with a present direct mili- 
tary expenditure on the part of the United States, 
of not more than one tenth of its annual receipts.* 

In a certain sense this large expenditure on 
the part of Mexico is for the direct benefit of the 
United States; for, if Mexico did not maintain 
reasonable peace and order throughout its great 
territory, the United States, having regard simply 
to its own peace and interests, would have to do 
it through military rule, on certainly so much of 
Mexico as is contiguous to the Federal dominions. 

There can be no doubt, further, that there is a 
powerful party in Mexico — the old social leaders, 
and what considers itself the best society of the 
country — embracing the Church, the notables, and 
persons of wealth and ancient lineage allied with 
Spain — which is not at all in sympathy with the 
younger and progressive element of the nation, 
and sullenly opposes the introduction of railroads, 
and dislikes the United States. And this party 
would, if it could, dominate the policy of the coun- 
try in all political and commercial questions. In 

* The maximum military force of the United States allowed under 
existing laws is 2,155 commissioned officers and 25,000 enlisted men. 
The estimated cost of the militaiy establishment of the United States 
for the current fiscal year, i886-'87, exclusive of expenditures for pub- 
lic works, is $25,680,495. 
10 



2l6 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

proof and illustration of this, note the following 
extract from a recent article in the " Voz de 
Mejico " (" Voice of Mexico "), an able Catholic 
daily published in the city of Mexico, against the 
policy of admitting American capitalists into the 
republic : 

"We combat," it says, "the policy of liberalism, 
which, greedy of material prosperity, and dazzled by 
the brilliancy of North American progress, opens freely 
the doors of our frontier to the capital of our neighbors. 
We do not oppose material progress, but we rather de- 
sire that it should come by natural steps, in proportion 
as the peace and public guarantees re-establish confi- 
dence and encourage the development of the country's 
own resources. Without foreign capital and without 
foreign labor, nothing or very little shall we be able to 
do, but we ought to refrain from calling in our neigh- 
bors, whose tendencies toward absorption are well known, 
in order that they shall decorate luxuriously our house 
and then install themselves in it definitely, relegating to 
us the departments of servitude. Prudent patriotism 
and good sense advise, therefore, that the co-operation 
of the Americans be dispensed with, although it be at 
the cost of material progress." 

It may also be affirmed with truth that the 
Mexican people generally dislike the United States 
and its people more than any other foreign coun- 
try and people. And why should they not? They 



DISLIKE OF AMERICANS. 217 

never have experienced anything of kindness or 
favors from the United States ; and they do not 
forget that she has taken from them, unjustly as 
they think, full half of their original territory.* 

* The following extract from " The Two Republics," a daily jour- 
nal published in the city of Mexico, under date of June 16, 1886, illus- 
trates the discussion of this matter from the liberal point of view : " If 
the professed hatred of foreigners on general principles is a sentiment 
which has disappeared almost entirely among the intelligent classes of 
the country, there still exists to-day another feeling which also disguises 
itself under the mask of patriotism and which is strongest among some 
of the most intelligent people of the republic. This feeling is no other 
than that of fear. And not fear of foreigners in general, least of all of 
Europeans (for \^g fiasco of the French intervention has done much to 
allay the fears entertained formerly in this country of European powers), 
but fear only of our Northern neighbors, and, associated with it, opposi- 
tion to everything identified with American interests. A certain politi- 
cal party in Mexico especially distinguishes itself by the fear with which 
the Yankee inspires it. The conservative press, as one of the arms of 
the opposition to liberal governments, writes daily the most bitter criti- 
cisms against them, for having opened the ports of the country to the 
enterprise and the capital of the Americans. If one were to credit 
this press, the present President and his immediate successor should be 
convicted of high-treason, on account of the policy they have observed 
toward railroads. 

" There is nothing to justify this fear, for which there is absolutely 
no reason. On the other hand our daily experience is demonstrating 
the contrary. . . . 

" It is a well-established fact that neither the Mexican nor the Euro- 
pean merchant has anything to fear from his American rival, and our 
own national experience proves conclusively that this fear of the Yan- 
kee is nothing but a bugbear, a groundless prejudice, which greatly 
injures the material development of this country. This fear serves no 
other purpose than to keep large capitals from our soil, which employed 
in Mexican enterprises would give an impulse and new life to agricult- 
ure, to mining, and to a multitude of industries which could be devel- 
oped in our country, and, besides being irreconcilable to our national 
pride, also make us appear in the eyes of our next neighbors as a cow- 



2i8 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

On the other hand, the present Government 
of Mexico seems to be cultivating and encourag- 
ing- every effort that may serve to strengthen 
society against the possibility of an)- conservative 
reaction. 

Thus, for example, the attitude of the Govern- 
ment toward the various Protestant sects, which 
arc earnestly striving to gain a foothold in Mexico 
and extend their special theological views among 
its people, is well illustrated by the following an- 
swer which was returned some time since by the 
Governor of one of the important States of Mexi- 
co to a Protestant clergyman, who had made ap- 
plication for military protection for his church 
against a threatened mob : 

" Sir, I willingly give you the desired protec- 

ardly people which doubts its own vitality, the manliness of its sons, and 
which seeks safety in the recourse of all weaklings against danger, 
namely, in flight, instead of fighting danger bravely ; and in this flight 
we greatly damage our economic interests, besides obstructing the de- 
velopment of the countr)'. 

" Even commerce, to which so much fear regarding our neighbors is 
attributed, should only see a reason for congratulation if American capi- 
tal comes to this country to impart life and activity to our market, which 
is almost stagnant for lack of circulation of money. And if, notwith- 
standing the lessons of the past, the pessimists should be right, and the 
American enterprise were not entirely free from danger to us, why in 
the world have we not confidence enough in ourselves to face such 
danger, instead of running away from it? To close the door to the ele- 
ments of natural progress, which might ofl'cr themselves, only for a feel- 
ing of fear which is as unfounded as it is needless, and almost childish, 
would be the same as if a man should abstain from food, for fear of 
producing an indigestion." 



POSITION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 219 

tion, as it is my duty to see that the laws are re- 
spected ; and, while I feel no interest whatever 
in your religious forms or opinions, we are all 
interested in encouraging the organization of a 
body of clergy strong enough to keep the old 
Church in check." 

Whether the Catholic Church will accommodate 
itself to the new order of things, and be content 
to live peaceably side by side with civil liberty 
and full religious toleration, or whether, smarting 
under a sense of injustice at its spoliation, and rest- 
less under the heavy hand of an antagonistic gov- 
ernment, it waits its opportunity to array itself 
against the powers that be, is yet to be deter- 
mined. Ex-Consul Strother, who has already been 
often quoted as an authority, thus graphically ex- 
hibits the respective attitudes of the former and 
still great ecclesiastical power and its acknowl- 
edged antagonist, the Government : " They may 
be illustrated," he says, " by a glance at the Grand 
Plaza of the city, across an angle of which the pal- 
ace of the liberal Government and the old cathe- 
dral stand looking askance at each other. On the 
one hand, at the guard-mounting, the serried lines 
of bayonets and the rolling drums appear as a daily 
reiterated menace and warning. On the other, 
we might naturally expect to hear from the ca- 
thedral towers a responsive peal of indignant pro- 



220 yi STUDY OF MEXICO. 

test and sullen defiance. Yet we remember that 
it is not the clergy, but the Government, which 
holds the bell-ropes." 

It will not, furthermore, be disputed that under 
the liberal policy which Juarez adopted after the 
overthrow of the empire, and which the pres- 
ent President has especially carried out, more has 
been done for the regeneration and progress of 
Mexico than in almost all former years. Not 
only has freedom for religious belief and worship 
been secured, but a system of common schools has 
been established ; the higher branches of educa- 
tion fostered ; brigandage in a great degree sup- 
pressed ; an extensive railroad and telegraph sys- 
tem constructed ; postage reduced and post-office 
facilities extended ; the civil and military law codes 
revised and reformed ; the payment of interest 
upon the national debt in part renewed ; and gen- 
eral peace, at home and abroad, maintained — and 
all this under difficulties which, when viewed ab- 
stractly and collectively by a foreign observer, 
seem to be appalling and insurmountable. 

Now, why should not the United States, which 
heretofore has been so prompt to sympathize with 
and even give material aid to the people of every 
Old World nationality struggling for freedom and 
against oppression — to Poland, Greece. Hungary, 
and Ireland — be equally ready to sympathize with 



A DESIRABLE POLICY. 221 

and help the progressive party of Mexico — our 
neighbor — in the efforts they are unquestionably 
making to put their country in accord with the 
demands of a larger civiHzation? 

But, assuming the general concurrence, on the 
part of the people of the United States, in the 
proposition that an exceptionally kindly treatment 
of Mexico ought to be a permanent policy of their 
Government, such a proposition, even if proclaimed 
in a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress, 
would be little other than an expression of sen- 
timent, unless accompanied by practical action. 
But, through what measures, having this definite 
end in view, it may be asked, can practical action, 
not repugnant to the spirit of the Constitution or 
the precedents and traditions of the Government 
of the United States, be instituted? And, in an- 
swer, the following points are submitted for con- 
sideration : 

First. That the Government and people of the 
United States should do all that can be reasona- 
bly asked of them to dispel the idea or suspicion, 
that now prevails throughout Mexico and all Cen- 
tral America, that the North Americans desire 
and intend, at no distant day, to take possession of 
all these countries, and destroy their present na- 
tionality. So long as this suspicion exists, the 
influence of the United States in Mexico and Cen- 



222 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

tral America will be based to a great degree on 
apprehension rather than liking. A return of the 
cannon and flags captured by the armies of the 
United States in the War of 1847, as heretofore 
proposed, would undoubtedly greatly contrib- 
ute to dispel this feeling ; but, apart from this, 
would it not be well for those who are especially 
anxious to send the gospel to the heathen, to con- 
sider whether it conduces to a higher life and civ- 
ilization, for two neighboring nations to live on a 
basis which, if made applicable to individual mem- 
bers of the same community, would be regarded 
as akin to barbarism ? * 

Second. The public debt of Mexico, which is 
recognized as valid, has been variously estimated. 
According to the report of the Mexican Secre- 
tary of Finance in 1879, ^^'^^ foreign debt of Mexi- 
co — exclusive of the enormous liabilities (some 
^^40,000,000) contracted under the empire of Maxi- 
milian, and which Mexico (very properly) does not 
recognize — amounted at that date to $81,632,560: 

* In 1878, Hon. John T. Morgan, United States Senator from 
Alabama, recognizing the importance of this matter, and after thus 
expressing himself in a speech — " Mexico is not destitute of a cause to 
look with jealous eye upon the people of the United States, while 
we on our part have the greatest reasons for treating her with a gen- 
erous and magnanimous spirit " — proposed " that the United States 
should solemnly covenant not to change the present limits of Mexico, 
nor to consent to their being changed by any other nation." The 
proposition, however, did not attract any attention, or lead to any 
official action. 



OBLIGATIONS OF DEBT. 223 

and, in addition to this, there is a reported inter- 
nal debt of some $40,000,000. At the present time 
(1886) the aggregate national debt of Mexico has 
been reported as amounting to $122,891,000, and 
$7,891,000 arrears of interest. The obligations 
which this debt entails constitute a serious embar- 
rassment to the Government, and a heavy burden 
upon the resources of the country. Numerous at- 
tempts have been made to fund it, with adequate 
provision for the payment of interest — the pay- 
ment of the principal being regarded as hopeless — 
a scheme by President Gonzales in 1884 for a new 
conversion, by the issue of bonds to the amount 
of $86,000,000, having well-nigh occasioned a revo- 
lution ; not that Mexico wanted to repudiate, but 
because the whole measure was believed to be 
tainted with fraud. During the present year (1886) 
however, the Mexican Government has resumed 
payment, in part, of the interest on the English 
bonded indebtedness — in pursuance of an act of 
Congress in 1885, which authorized the consolida- 
tion of the entire national debt without consulta- 
tion with the creditors. But so long as the debt 
of Mexico is not arranged to the satisfaction of 
its holders, and the originally stipulated interest 
thereon is not regularly paid, the republic can ex- 
pect but little credit, no sound finance, no full ma- 
terial development, and no thoroughly sound gov- 



224 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

ernmcnt. And, imperative as is the problem, there 
seems but Httle present chance for Mexico to solve 
it. The United States could, however, easily ac- 
complish it. With its interest temporarily guar- 
anteed by it (i. e., for a time sufficient to allow of a 
fuller development of the trade and commerce of 
the country) the Mexican debt could undoubtedly 
be funded at from two to two and a half per cent 
interest, involving an annual charge, say, from 
$1,800,000 to $2,225,000 — less than what is almost 
annually w^astcd on river and harbor improvements 
that subserve only private interests ; and not much 
more than the four leading railroads of the North- 
west have this year (1886) decided to add to their 
annual interest charges, for the purpose of ex- 
tended constructions over territory that can at 
present return but little remunerative business. 
Is this a sum too great for the American people to 
pay, if it will help to give good government to a 
contiguous territory nearly as large as all of the 
United States eavSt of the Mississippi ? 

Buying near!}' six tenths, and selling nearly 
one half of all that Mexico sells»and buys exter- 
nal to itself, is not such a commerce worth foster- 
ing by the expenditure of such a sum? — especially 
in view of the fact that a bill was introduced at 
the first session of the Fortv-ninth Congress which 
proposed, as an act of sound public policy, to tax 



RECIPROCAL INTERESTS. 



225 



the people of the United States to the extent of 
some fifteen million dollars per annum, for the 
purpose of fostering only one department of the 
industry of the country — namely, that of manufact- 
uring tin-plate. 

That such a proposition is likely to be scouted, 
in the first instance, by the American public, is "to 
be anticipated. " Have we not debts enough of 
our own to pay," it may be asked, " without 
looking after those of other people ? " But let 
us reason a little. Can it be doubted that, after 
the termination of our late civil war, the United 
States would have practically enforced against 
the Maximilian government, had it been neces- 
sary, that phase of the Monroe doctrine which 
affirms that European political jurisdiction shall 
not be enlarged on this continent? Fortunately, 
Mexico was able, out of its patriotism and sacri- 
fice, to protect itself against the encroachment of 
foreign powers, and thus saved the United States 
from a conflict that would have permanently in- 
creased the burden of its debt by many times 
two million dollars. 

Again, the demands of the world's commerce, 
for the establishment of speedy and cheap methods 
of transit across the narrow belt of Southern Mexi- 
co and Central America which separates the two 
oceans, are being recognized ; and new routes sup- 



226 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

plying such conditions, at no distant day, are cer- 
tain to be established. European sovereignty over 
them is, however, repugnant to the sentiment of 
the United States, and, if attempted, will prob- 
ably be contested ; and this, in turn, if anything 
more than words of protest are to be used, 
means formidable military and naval demonstra- 
tions and large expenditures. The people of the 
United States might, however, well hesitate be- 
fore embarking in such an enterprise, in view of 
the fact that the foe which their forces would 
have to especially encounter and most dread, 
would be one against which neither courage nor 
skill would avail ; for over all the low, tropical 
regions of Central America, where the routes for 
interoccanic transit have got to be constructed, 
the climate for unacclimated persons is most 
deadly — in proof of which the current mortality 
of Vera Cruz, San Bias, and the line of the 
Panama Canal may be cited ; as well as the hor- 
rible historical experience of the forces which 
the North American colonies sent in 1741 to co- 
operate with Admiral Vernon's expedition to Car- 
thagena and the coasts of " Daricn " (Panama). 
But Mexico is a nation of soldiers; and, if proper 
kindly relations were to be established between 
the two countries, the United States could con- 
fidently rely on, or employ, the well-acclimated 



INTEROCEANIC ROUTES. 22/ 

troops of the former to guard any transit routes 
from foreign appropriation and control ; even if 
a desire on the part of the people of Mexico and 
Central America to preserve the integrity of their 
own territories was not sufficient to prompt them 
to defensive action. But kindly relations, between 
nations, are not to be established in a day and 
under the pressure of a one-sided necessity ; and 
nations, as well as men, "gain doubly when they 
make foes friends." 

Third. The commercial relations between the 
United States and Mexico, now complicated and 
restricted by mutual antagonistic tariff legisla- 
tion, might easily be so readjusted and broadened 
as to secure continued peace and amity between 
the people of the two nations, and greatly ex- 
tend the volume and the profits of their inter- 
national commerce. And to the present condition 
and possibilities in detail, of this commerce, atten- 
tion is next invited. 



CHAPTER XI. 

The American railroad system in Mexico — Its influence in promoting 
internal order and good government — Remarkable illustration of 
the influence of the railroad in developing domestic industry — The 
kerosene-lamp a germ of civilization — Commercial supremacy of 
the Germans in Mexico — Mexican credit system — Trade advan- 
tages on the part of the United States — Inaptitude of Americans 
for cultivating foreign trade — American products most in demand 
in Mexico— Weakness of argument in opposition to the ratifica- 
tion of a commercial treaty — Adverse action of Congress — Reasons 
offered by the Committee of Ways and Means — Interest of the 
Protestant Church of the United States in the treaty — Conclusion. 

The commercial relations of the United States 
with Mexico are, to all intents and purposes, com- 
prised in and identical with the system of railroads 
which American capital and enterprise have intro- 
duced into the latter country. Their introduction 
has constituted the last and the greatest revolution 
that Mexico has experienced since the achievement 
of her independence ; for, with the means which 
they have for the first time afforded the central 
Government for quick and ready communication 
between the remote portions of the republic, a 
stable government and a discontinuance of in- 
ternal revolts and disturbances have for the first 



INFLUENCE OF RAILROADS. 229 

time become possible. Thus, to illustrate : Chi- 
huahua, an important center of population, is dis- 
tant a thousand miles or more from the city of 
Mexico ; and between the two places, in addition, 
a somewhat formidable desert intervenes, of about 
a hundred miles in width, and over which the 
" Mexican Central Railroad " trains are obliged 
to carry a water-supply for their locomotives. 
Previous to 1883, if a revolution broke out in 
Chihuahua, the most ready method of communi- 
cating intelligence of the same to the central 
Government would have been to send a man on 
foot, probably an Indian runner. If the messen- 
ger averaged fifty miles a day, twenty days would 
have been consumed in reaching the city of Mexi- 
co, and from three to six weeks more, at the very 
least, would have been required to dispatch a 
corps of trained soldiers from the capital, or 
some intermediate point, to the scene of the dis- 
turbance. But before this the revolutionists would 
have had all the opportunity for levying forced 
loans or direct plunder, or the gratification of 
private animosities, that their hearts could de- 
sire. And it is altogether probable that, in a 
majority of such cases, political grievances were 
merely alleged as a pretext for and a defense of 
plunder; and it is a wonder how, under such 
circumstances, there could be any desire for or 



23© A SrUDV OF MEXICO. 

expectation of accumulation through production, 
and tliat universal barbarism did not prevail. 
But now, under the railroad and its accompany- 
ing telegraph system, if anybody makes a promtn- 
cianiicnto at Chihuahua, the Executive at the city 
of Mexico knows all the particulars immediately; 
within a few days a trained regiment or battalion 
is on the spot, and all concerned are so summarily 
treated that it is safe to say that another similar 
lesson will not soon be required in that locality. 
The new railroad constructions were, therefore, 
absolutely essential to Mexico as a condition for 
a healthy national life, and the country could 
well afford to make great sacrifices to obtain and 
extend them, apart from any considerations affect- 
ing trade development. 

But the American railroads in Mexico have, in 
addition, already done much to arouse the most 
stubbornly conservative people on the face of the 
globe from their lethargy, and in a manner that 
no other instrumentality probably could have ef- 
fected. When the locomotive first appeared, it 
is said that the people of whole villages fled af- 
frighted from their habitations, or organized pro- 
cessions with religious emblems and holy water, 
to exorcise and rejicl the monster. During the 
first year of the experience of the " Mexican 
Central," armed guards also were considered an 



TRANSPORTATION AND TRADE. 231 

essential accompaniment of every train, as had 
been the case on the " Vera Cruz Railroad " since 
its opening in 1873. But all this is now a matter 
of the past; and so impressed is the Government 
with the importance of keeping its railroad sys- 
tem safe and intact, that the Mexican Congress 
recently decreed instant execution, without any 
formal trial, to any one caught in the act of 
wrecking or robbing a train. That any improved 
methods of intercommunication between different 
people or countries — common roads, vessels, rail- 
roads, or vehicles, or the like — increase the pro- 
duction and exchange of commodities, is accepted 
as an economic axiom. But there could be no 
more striking and practical illustration of this 
law than a little recent experience on the line 
of the " Mexican National Railroad." The corn- 
crop, which is the main reliance of the people 
living along the present southern extension of 
this road for food, had for several years prior to 
1885 failed by reason of drought; and, under 
ordinary circumstances, great suffering through 
starvation would inevitably have ensued. The 
natives, however, soon learned that with the rail- 
road had come a ready market, at from two and 
a half to three cents per pound, for the fiber 
known as " ixtle^' the product of a species of 
agave, which grows in great abundance in the 



232 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

mountainous regions of their section of country, 
and which has recently come into extensive use 
in Europe and the United States for the manu- 
facture of brushes, ladies' corsets, mats, cordage, 
etc. And so well have they improved their 
knowledge and opportunities, that the quantity 
of ixtle transported by the " Mexican National 
Railroad" has risen from 224,788 pounds in 1882 
to 700,341 in 1883; to 3,498,407 in 1884; and 
3'53i>i95 Jri the first seven months of 1885; while 
with the money proceeds the producers have 
been able to buy more corn from Texas than 
they would have obtained had their crops been 
successful, and have had, in addition, and prob- 
ably for the first time in their lives, some sur- 
plus cash to expend for other purposes. 

What sort of things these poor Mexican peo- 
ple would buy if they could, was indicated to 
the writer by seeing in the hut of a laborer, on 
the line of the " Mexican Central Railroad " — a 
place destitute of almost every comfort, or article 
of furniture or convenience — a bright, new, small 
kerosene-lamp, than which nothing that fell under 
his observation in Mexico was more remarkable 
and interesting. Remarkable and interesting, be- 
cause neither this man nor his father, possibly 
since the world to them began, had ever before 
known anvthino: better than a blazinq; brand as a 



A GERM OF PROGRESS. 233 

method for illumination at night, and had never 
had either the knowledge, the desire, or the 
means of obtaining anything superior. But at 
last, through contact with and employment on 
the American railroad, the desire, the oppor- 
tunity, the means to purchase, and the knowl- 
edge of the simple mechanism of the lamp, had 
come to this humble, isolated Mexican peasant; 
and, out of the germ of progress thus sponta- 
neously, as it w^ere, developed by the wayside, 
may come influences more potent for civilization 
and the elevation of humanity in Mexico than all 
that church and state have been able to effect 
within the last three centuries. 
A The projection and extension of the American 
system of railroads into Mexico commanded the 
almost universal approval of the people of the 
United States.* It was regarded as a measure 

* The Mexican railroad system at the present time (1886) is sub- 
stantially as follows : 

The " Mexico and Vera Cruz Railway " (263 miles) and the " Cen- 
tral," from El Paso to Mexico (1,224 miles), are finished and in opera- 
tion. The " National " (Palmer-Sullivan, from Laredo to Mexico) 
lacks some 300 miles of completion. The " Central " has a line in 
operation from Nogales to Guaymas (265 miles). The " Intemacional " 
(Huntington) is built and in operation from Piedras Negras some 130 
miles south to a little beyond Monclova, as is also the " National " 
from Matamoros to San Miguel de Camargo, some 80 miles. The 
" Central " has about lOO miles built, from Tampico toward San Luis 
Potosi, and about 16 miles on the Pacific coast at San Bias. The 
" National " has built from Acambaro, on the southern division, toward 
the Pacific coast at Manzanilla, as far as Patzcuaro, some 95 miles. 



234 ^ STUDY OF MEXICO. 

in the interest of civilization, and as likely to be 
mutually and largely beneficial to the people of 
both nations. But for the United States and Mexi- 
co to maintain their present tariff restrictions on 
the international trade of the two countries is to 
simply neutralize in a great degree the effect of 
the railways, and create conditions so antagonis- 
tic to the idea which a railway represents that 
the investment of a large amount of money in 
their construction by citizens of the United States, 
under existing circumstances, would seem almost 
akin to dementia. For it must be obvious that 
these restrictions produce exactly the same result 
as if, after the railways had been completed, an 
earthquake had thrown up a ridge directly across 
the lines, so steep and precipitous on the north- 
ern side as to add from thirty to forty per cent 
to the cost of all merchandise passing from the 
United States into Mexico, and so much more 
difficult of ascent on the southern side as to add 
some ninety per cent to the cost of all goods 
passing from Mexico into the United States. And, 
if such a physical calamity had actually occurred, 
the stockholders might reasonably d(nibt whether 
the lines were worth operating. 

They have also some work done on the other end from Manzanilla. 
Some work has been done on the Tehuantcpec route, and there are 
various other small lines building or in operation. 



GERMAN INFLUENCE. 



235 



But, at the same time, if there are any who 
expect that trade would immediately and largely 
increase between the two countries if all tariff re- 
strictions were mutually abolished, they are cer- 
tain to be disappointed. A large proportion of 
the people of Mexico — possibly nine tenths — will 
for the present buy nothing imported, whether 
there is a high tariff or no tariff — not because 
they do not want to, but because they are so poor 
that they can not buy under any circumstances ; 
while the limited wealthy class will buy what they 
want of foreign products, irrespective of high du- 
ties. 

Again, the internal trade or distribution of mer- 
chandise in Mexico is, furthermore, largely in the 
hands of the Germans, who learn the language 
and conform to the customs and prejudices of 
the country much more readily than the Ameri- 
cans or English. They will work longer than an 
American or Englishman for a smaller price, and 
they naturally prefer the products of their own 
countries ; and German manufactures have been 
especially popular, " because they are as cheap as 
they are poor " ; and the advantage of paying 
more for what will last longer is something very 
difficult to impress upon the ordinary Mexican.* 

* Under date of June, 1883, United States Consul Casbaid reports 
from Tampico that some articles of American hardware, which have 



236 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

In fact, cheapness in the eyes of the German mer- 
chant is the first essential in respect to the mer- 
chandise in which he proposes to deal, quality 
being regarded as of secondary importance. 

Another matter which practically works against 
the extension of trade wnth the United States is, 
that American houses will not sell their goods on 
the long credits demanded by Mexican purchas- 
ers. A gentleman conversant, through long resi- 
dence in Mexico, thus writes in respect to this 
matter: "It is a serious mistake to look upon 
Mexican credit as something to be let alone. I 
can say with confidence, after diligent investiga- 
tion, that mercantile credit in Mexico will aver- 
age up as satisfactor}' as in the United States. 
Among the large mercantile houses in the interior 
of Mexico, as well as the importers, and the large 
sugar, grain, cotton, and cattle raisers, the moral 
sense in a square business dealing is as keen and 
as just and responsible as among the general run 
of customers in the United States. They are slow, 
but pay their bills, make few business compro- 
mises, and still fewer failures. From actual inspec- 

formcrly had an exclusive hold on the Mexican market, are fast los- 
ing ground — Collins (Hartford) macketes (cutlasses) and the Cohoes 
(New V'ork) axes being superseded by spurious German manufactures. 
" I have seen machetes, manufactured at Ehcrfcld, Germany, which, 
although inferior to the Collins, are nevertheless good imitations of 
them, selling at forty per cent cheaper." 



MEXICAN BUSINESS HONESTY. 



237 



tion of books of large houses in Mexico, exhibit- 
ing accounts of a series of years, I found that 
eighty-five to ninety per cent of long-credit sales 
were paid in full. Not one American business 
man in five hundred will succeed in Mexico, for 
the sole reason that he attempts to force his own 
ways and methods upon a people whose habits 
and ways are the antipodes of his own. Our 
manners are not in accord with the extreme po- 
liteness and consideration to be found in Mexi- 
co. Business is largely done on the basis of feel- 
ing and sentiment, and established acquaintance. 
Neither has time nor money the transcendent value 
that it has with us." It is also interesting to note 
here that for these, or some other reasons, there 
are comparatively few Jews in Mexico, and that 
as a race they do not seem to fancy the country, 
either as a place of residence or for the transaction 
of business. 

Consul-General Sutton, of Matamoros, tells the 
following story illustrative of the good faith in a 
mercantile transaction of the rajicheros of North- 
ern Mexico, the particulars of which were detailed 
to him by the parties concerned : " A German 
house in interior Mexico contracted for the pur- 
chase of two hundred mule-colts, to be delivered 
a year following ; and payment, at the rate of 
twenty dollars a pair, was made in advance. A 



238- A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

year elapsed, and the mules were not delivered. 
The head of the house would not, however, allow 
any message of inquiry or reminder to be sent, 
but remained quiet. A year after the stipulated 
time, the raiichcros came in with the mules. There 
had been a disease and a drought, which had 
killed the colts the first year, and this was the 
reason assigned for not coming according to agree- 
ment. They sent no word, because it was so far, 
and they did not remember the name." When 
the firm counted the mules, they found that three 
had been brought for each pair stipulated and 
paid for; which was the way the ranchcros quiet- 
ly settled for their unavoidable breach of contract. 
But, notwithstanding all these obstacles to the 
extension of trade, the advantages from commer- 
cial intercourse with Mexico are all on the side 
of the United States. Commerce, in establishing 
a course between any two points, always follows 
the lines of least resistance. And to-da)-, through 
the establishment of railway lines, which furnish 
ample, rapid, and comparatively cheap facilities 
for transportation between the interior of Mexico 
and such great commercial and manufacturing cen- 
ters as Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Kansas 
City, the easiest movement' for the commerce of 
Mexico is by and through the United States. One 
demonstration of this is to be found in the fact 



TRADE PECULIARITIES. 



239 



that the " Mexican Central Railroad " now carries 
considerable freight that comes to New York by 
European steamers, and is thence transported, in 
bond, by rail directly through to Mexico ; to which 
it may be added that some $300,000 of this freight, 
during the past year, is understood to have been 
English agricultural machinery, which has been 
bought in preference to the world-wide famous 
American farm machinery and implements, and 
carried past, as it were, the very doors of the 
American competing factories ! 

For such a singular result there are tvv^o ex- 
planations. One is, that not only in Mexico, but 
in all the Central and South American countries, 
the English and the German merchants take spe- 
cial pains, not only to adapt their merchandise to 
the peculiar tastes of the people with whom they 
wish to deal, but also to cultivate their good-will. 
The representatives of the United States, as a gen- 
eral rule, do neither. 

A quick witted American merchant, who has 
had abundant opportunities for observation in Cen- 
tral and South America, recently w^rote to the au- 
thor in respect to this matter as follows : " My 
experiences lead me to the conclusion that Ameri- 
cans are not fitted for doing an export trade in 
foreign countries, except, ma}' be, English-speaking 
countries. The characteristic of our people to 



240 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



carry vvitli them everywhere their home habits, cus- 
toms, ideas, affinities, etc., dominates every move- 
ment they make in foreign countries, and we utterly 
refuse to consider ourselves other than proprietors 
of the house where we are only the guests. Such 
an attitude as this blocks the way at once to 
successful mercantile movements on our part, and 
gives rise to prejudice and aversion on the part 
of the people whose patronage we want." Sir 
Spencer St. John, the British minister in Mexico, 
in a recent (1885) report to Lord Rosebury, Brit- 
ish Secretary of Foreign Affairs, also says: "In 
the course of a very long experience I have noted 
that the average English commercial man of the 
present day is unfit to compete with the thrifty 
and industrious German. The former is bent on 
the pursuit of pleasure, while the latter gives him- 
self no leisure until his future is assured. In fact, 
the Germans are our most active competitors in 
every mercantile transaction. There can be no 
doubt that up to the present time the English 
commercial community have shown the utmost 
apathy and indifference to the trade of this coun- 
try, and have left to the Germans, French, and 
Spaniards the management of a commerce a fair 
share of which would fall to them if they would 
show the same qualities of thrift and industry 
which have distinguished iheir competitors." 



NATURE OF MEXICAN TRADE. 24 1 

Another explanation is that our European com- 
petitors in foreign trade recognize at the outset, 
and at all times, that trade, especially when in- 
volving radical innovations on old-time precedents 
and usages, is not of spontaneous growth, but has 
got to be cultivated; that it is a system in which 
product is to be given for product, and service 
for service, and therefore, from its very nature, 
can not be a " one-sided business." Accordingly, 
the German and English merchants in Mexico 
take in exchange for such wares as they desire 
to sell, and at a certain price, whatever the Mexi- 
cans have to offer of their products. The Ameri- 
can merchant, on the other hand, finding that the 
commercial policy of his country is based on the 
assumption that such a system of exchanges is not 
desirable, and that its existing laws make recipro- 
cal trade difficult, does not seem even to attempt 
it. And in connection with this subject it may 
be stated, that during recent years German mer- 
chants have bought merchandise in New York, 
which American manufacturers have acquired par- 
ticular advantages in producing, shipped the same 
to Hamburg, and, after re-exporting to Mexico, 
sold them at cheaper rates than any American 
engaged in direct trade could afford to offer! 
How such a result, which on its face seems so 
mysterious and paradoxical, is accomplished, may 



242 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



be best explained by example. Thus, the German, 
who has become thoroughly conversant with Mexi- 
can methods of doing business, could sell say $3,000 
worth of American cottons, furniture, sewing-ma- 
chines, and the like, at cost, or possibly even less 
than cost, because his system of selling is to ex- 
change them for $3,000 worth of Mexican prod- 
ucts, which he can afterward sell, it may be, at 
$5,000, or a sum which would give him a fair re- 
turn for all his risks and for long credits, and 
also reimburse him for all the expenses of ex- 
tended transportation. And the Mexicans are con- 
tented with their share of the transaction, because 
nothing better is offered to them. Hence also an 
explanation of what may seem to be paradoxical : 
that although the import and export trade of the 
United States with Mexico is larger than that 
of any other nation, there are comparatively few 
American dealers or distributors of merchandise 
permanently established in Mexico. Thus, for ex- 
ample, while the consumption of American imports 
in the district of Guaymas, on the Pacific coast of 
Mexico, was for the year 1885 (according to con- 
sular returns) over sixty-five per cent of the total 
importations, or $1,490,450 out of an aggregate of 
$2,041,940, there were at the same time but three 
American importing mercantile firms whose sales 
amounted to $100,000 per annum — the great bulk of 



COMMERCIAL RECIPROCITY. 243 

the business being in the hands of Mexican, Ger- 
man, and Spanish houses. As showing also how 
the trade in this district has increased within re- 
cent years to the benefit of the United States, it 
may be also mentioned that, while in 1870 the im- 
ports from the United States were only $203,600, 
out of a total of $1,003,600, they were, for 1885 
(as above stated), $1,490,450, out of a total of 
$2,041,940. It is also the judgment of those well 
qualified to express an opinion, that, as one effect 
of the recent discourteous refusal of the United 
States to negotiate a commercial reciprocity treaty, 
the number of American firms or agencies doing 
business permanently in Mexico will notably di- 
minish. 

That the ratification of the contemplated treaty 
for commercial reciprocity between the United 
States and Mexico would have increased to some 
extent, and perhaps considerably, the volume of 
American exports, can not be doubted. Thus, for 
example, there are no articles of which Mexico 
stands in greater need than wagons and carts, 
barbed fence-wire, and petroleum and its deriva- 
tives for warming and lighting. In respect to the 
two first named, the existing Mexican tariff is 
almost prohibitory, and, as a consequence, it is 
asserted that there is not a respectable vehicle 
in any of the frontier towns of Mexico* and no 



244 ^' STUDY OF MEXICO. 

means, in the absence of wood, of supplying a press- 
ing and increasing need for fencing on the great 
hacicfidas ; while the cost of all petroleum prod- 
ucts is so much enhanced as to greatly restrict 
their consumption for illumination and almost en- 
tirely preclude their use for warming, and this in 
a country destitute in great part of any cheap 
natural supply of either wood or coal. The re- 
moval of all duties on the import of merely these 
few articles into Mexico, as was provided in the 
proposed treaty, and their consequent very great 
cheapening, would therefore have been a boon to 
the people of Mexico, which they would not have 
failed to take advantage of to the utmost extent 
of their ability ; and, for meeting any demand 
thus created, the manufacturers of the United 
States would have nothing to fear from any for- 
eign competitors. 

On the other hand, the arguments that have 
thus far proved most potent in preventing the 
ratification of such a treaty, on the part of the 
United States, have been based on the assump- 
tion that the free importation of Mexican raw 
sugars and unmanufactured tobacco would prove 
injurious to the American sugar and tc^bacco in- 
terests. But the entire fallacy, or rather utter 
absurdity, of such assumptions would seem to be 
demonstrated : First, in respect to sugar, by the 



SUGAR AND TOBACCO. 245 

fact that, with unrefined sugar selling in Mexico 
for a much higher price (from twelve to twenty- 
four cents retail) than the same article in the 
United States, there have not yet been sufficient 
inducements for them to fully supply the domes- 
tic demand of the country for sugar from its 
undoubtedly great natural resources— y?z'^ and a 
half dollars' worth of sugar having been exported 
from the United States into Mexico, in 1883, for 
every one dollar's worth imported during the same 
year from Mexico into the United States ; * and, 
secondly, in respect to tobacco, by the testimony, 
based on careful investigation, of some of the best 
manufacturing authorities in the United States, 
that, while the best grades of tobacco for cigar 
purposes can now be raised in the United States 
at from ten to fifteen cents per pound, the cost 
of Mexican tobacco of a corresponding quality 
ranges from twenty-five to fifty cents per pound. 

* A Mexican merchant, writing recently from the district of Juguila, 
on the Pacific coast of Mexico, to Consul-General Sutton, thus reports 
concerning the prospects for production of sugar in that locality. It can 
not fail to remind the reader of the famous argument in respect to the 
kettle : " On this coast panela (brown sugar) can be produced for one 
cent a pound, a price at which it is impossible for any other country 
in the world to compete, and notwithstanding it is so cheap we can not 
export a single pound. Why ? I. Because there are no roads except 
for birds and deer ; 2. Because there are no means of transportation ; 
3. Because there are no ports except natural ones, or ports so called, 
both kinds without means for loading ; and, 4. Because there is no ves- 
sel for carrying it." 



246 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

It is difficult to see, therefore, what vaUd objec- 
tions from merely trade considerations can be of- 
fered to the consummation of such a measure on 
the part of the United States, or to affirm which 
of the two countries would be the greatest gainer 
from the adoption of such a policy. Nay, more, 
it would be difficult for any one to show wherein 
anything of commercial or industrial disadvantage 
could accrue to the United States, even if it were 
to allow every domestic product of Mexico to be 
imported into her territory free of all import taxes 
or restrictions — articles subject to internal revenue 
taxes in the United States being manifestly ex- 
cepted — without asking any like concessions from 
Mexico in return. Such a proposition may at first 
seem preposterous, but let us reason a little about 
it. In the first place, it is exactly the policy which 
Great Britain now offers to Mexico. Can the 
United States afford to bid less for the trade of 
the American Continent than her great commer- 
cial rival? 

Again, Mexico wants, or is likely to want, every- 
thing which the United States especially desires 
to sell, and the only drawback to a great exten- 
sion of trade between the two countries is the 
lack of ability on the part of Mexico to pay for 
what she wants. And this inability at the pres- 
ent time is very great. Apart from the precious 



WHAT MEXICO BUYS AND SELLS. 



247 



metals, the quantity and value of domestic mer- 
chandise which Mexico can export to pay for 
such foreign products as she may desire, as al- 
ready pointed out, are comparatively small, and 
consist almost exclusively of the most crude nat- 
ural products. For the year 1883 nearly eleven 
twelfths of all her exports (other than the pre- 
cious metals) consisted of the ixtle and heniquen 
fibers ; woods, mainly dye and ornamental ; coffee, 
hides and skins, vanilla, horse-hair, catechu, dye- 
stuffs (indigo, orchil, and cochineal), and sarsapa- 
rilla. What Mexico would sell to the United 
States, if all tariff restrictions were removed from 
her exports, would be such crude materials as 
have been specified — -all articles of prime necessity 
to the American manufacturer. Reduced to terms 
of labor, the exchanges would substantially be the 
product of twelve hours' hand-labor in Mexico for 
one hour's labor with machinery in the United 
States. 

The Committee of Ways and Means of the 
Forty-ninth -United States Congress (first session) 
reported, however, adversely to the ratification 
of the proposed commercial treaty with Mexico, 
and in consequence of this action, and its sanc- 
tion by the United States House of Representa- 
tives, all negotiations in respect to the treaty have 
terminated. The reasons presented as having led 



248 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

the committee (almost unanimously) to these con- 
clusions were mainly four : First, because Mexico 
is S(j })()()r; second, because "the American citizen 
livini; in Mexico, and pursuiiiL;- the peaceful avo- 
cations of industry and commerce, is without 
adequate protection to life and property " ; tJiird, 
because "permanent and desirable commercial re- 
lations with a government and people so estranged 
from us in sentiment arc without promise of sub- 
stantial and successful results " ; and, fourth, be- 
cause the trade which the United States would 
offer to Mexico under the treaty would be more 
valuable than the corresponding trade which Mexi- 
co would offer to the United States. 

The first of these reasons is economic ; the 
second political ; the third, having due regard to 
its meaning, may be well termed '* Mongolian " ; 
while the fourth is simply absurd. Reviewing 
them briefly and in order, it may be said, in re- 
spect to the first, that poor countries are the 
very ones with which it is especially desirable 
that the United States should cultivate trade; for, 
if the volume of trade be small, the profit of such 
trade is large — as is always the case where the 
results of rude or hand labor arc exchanged for 
machinery product. And it is in virtue of the 
carrying out of this policy— i. e., trading with 
ruder and even barbaious nations — that Great 



POOR STATESMANSHIP. 249 

Britain has, more than from ahnost any other 
one cause, attained her present commercial su- 
premacy. Again, if the facts constituting the basis 
for the second reason are as alleged, commercial 
isolation and restriction are no remedy for them. 
Commercial intimacy between nations is always 
productive of political good-fellowship, as isola- 
tion and restriction are of enmity ; and for pro- 
moting amity with Mexico the modern drummer 
is likely to prove, for the present, a far better 
missionary than either the diplomatist or the sol- 
dier ; and, as for the tJiird, one might think that 
a precedent had been borrowed by the commit- 
tee from China, where commercial intercourse 
with the United States itself, in common with 
Europe, was, until very recently, combated on 
the ground that the inhabitants of these coun- 
tries were " foreign devils," with whom the en- 
lightened Chinese ought not to be brought in 
contact. 

In respect to the fourth reason, the language 
of the report of the committee reads as follows: 
" We open to Mexico a trade with sixty million 
people. We receive, in return, the advantage of 
trading, to a limited extent, with a comparatively 
small, heterogeneous population of ten miUion. 
We offer them a trade more valuable than that 
of any other nation of the globe." 



250 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

To this it may be rejoined that the ratifica- 
tion of a commercial treaty between any two 
countries does not involve, or carry with it, the 
slightest obligation on the part of the people of 
such countries to trade. That is a matter in 
which private self-interest is exclusively deter- 
minate, and government, except through the ex- 
ercise of absolute and despotic power, absolutely 
powerless. All that a free government can legiti- 
mately efTcct, in ratifying a commercial treaty of 
reciprocity with another country, is to remove 
obstacles which have come to stand in the way 
of the people of the two contracting countries 
following their own natural instincts and desires 
for bettering their material condition. Trade, as 
respects individuals and nations alike, can not 
long be continued unless it is mutually advanta- 
geous to all that are parties to it ; and there is 
no possible contingency in which the people of 
Mexico would profit more, in the sense of satis- 
fying their wants and desires, from trading with 
the United States, than the people of the United 
States would profit from trading with Mexico, 
unless the American people have less shrewdness 
and discernment in respect to trade than the 
Mexicans, and are not likely to profit by ex- 
perience. Were an individual merchant, having 
warehouses filled to ovcrflowinc: with all manner 



MEXICAN RECIPROCITY TREATY. 25 1 

of cheap and desirable goods, and greatly de- 
sirous of custom, to adopt the policy which the 
committee assumed to be desirable in respect to 
nations similarly situated, he would advertise 
that he did not consider it expedient to trade 
with people living in small towns, or compara- 
tively poor districts, irrespective of their means 
of payment, or the profits that might accrue on 
the transactions. It has also been forcibly pointed 
out, by Hon. Abram Hewitt (in a minority re- 
port in favor of the ratification of the treaty), 
that Mexico, being rudely rebuffed in her desire 
to strengthen her commercial relations with the 
United States, may, while preserving its political 
autonomy, nevertheless contract such trade rela- 
tions with England or Germany as to practically 
occupy the position of a colony to one or both 
of these countries, so far as its trade and com- 
merce are concerned ; " and that hence, in re- 
jecting the Mexican reciprocity treaty, the United 
States practically rejects the Monroe doctrine, by 
turning that country, with its resources and pos- 
sibilities of development," over to some European 
nationality. 

One other point, bearing on this subject, may 
be also \vorthy of consideration by no small part 
of the American people. Twenty years ago, the 
attempt to advocate or expound any form of 



252 A STUDY OF MEXICO. 

religious belief in Mexico other and different 
from that held by the Roman Catholic Church 
would have been attended with imminent deadly 
peril; and, under such circumstances, Protestant- 
ism had not attained any considerable foothold 
in that country. Then, the permission to send 
missionaries freely and safely into Mexico would 
have been regarded by the various Protestant 
sects of the United States as a great privilege, 
and the prospect of obtaining it would undoubt- 
edly have seemed to them to warrant the putting 
forth of great effort, the large expenditure of 
money, and an earnest appeal to their Govern- 
ment for good offices and friendly intervention. 
But now that the Mexican Government, without 
foreign intervention or agency, and at great risk 
and cost to itself, has proclaimed, established, and 
maintained, through all its territory, the great 
principle of freedom of religious belief, utterance, 
and worship for all — and this valued privilege 
has come to the Protestant sects in the United 
States without effort and without cost — they re- 
gard the matter with indifference ; do not seem 
to even care to acquaint themselves with the facts 
in the case ; and exhibit no evidence of reciprocal 
kindly feeling or svmpathy toward Mexico for 
her enlightened and liberal policy. It would not, 
therefore, be surprising, but rather in accord 



PRO TES TANT INDIFFERENCE. 



253 



with ordinary human nature, if, hereafter, when 
the representatives of the American Protestant 
churches visit Mexico, preaching- the universal 
brotherhood of man, and love and charity to 
one's neighbors, and, in virtue of their character 
as missionaries, claiming (at least indirectly) a 
higher religious culture and elevation for their 
countrymen than that of the Mexicans, if the 
latter should turn round and satirically ask how 
all such professions comport with the recent 
(1886) narrow, extraordinary, and almost insult- 
ing assertion of the House of Representatives of 
the United States (through the indorsement of 
the report of their committee), " that to speak of 
permanent and desirable commercial relations " 
with the Government and people of Mexico " is 
without hope of success or promise of substan- 
tial and permanent results." 

CONCLUSION. 

Such, then, in conclusion, are the views of 
the writer respecting Mexico, its Government, 
and its people, and the present and future rela- 
tions of the United States to Mexico. If he has 
offered anything, in the way of fact or argument, 
which may induce a belief, by the people of the 
former, that the subject is worthy of a larger 



254 



A STUDY OF MEXICO. 



and more kindly consideration on their part than 
it has hitherto received, he will feel that his 
investigations have not been wholly unsatisfac- 
tory. 




ACAPULCO. 



INDEX. 



Academy of Fine Arts, Mexican, 

103. 
Acapulco, road to, 125. 

National School of, 103. 
Agricultural machinery in Mexico,- 
127. 
productions of Mexico and the 
United States compared, 128. 
Agriculture, drawbacks to, 115. 

Mexican, prospects of, 132. 
Aguas Calientes, hot baths of, 25. 
Air, dryness of, in Mexico, 200. 
America, Central, unhealthiness 

of, 226. 
American invasion of Mexico, 70. 
invasion of Mexico without jus- 
tification, 70. 
investments in Mexico, 213. 
Americans, dislike of, in Mexico, 

217. 
Animals, domestic, unknown to 

the Aztecs, 54. 
Architecture, Mexican, 36. 
Argentine Republic, revenues of, 

182. 
Arista, General, memorial of, 70. 
Army, Mexican ; number and effi- 
ciency, 104. 
Art in Mexico, 5. 
Auto-da-fe, last in Mexico, 57. 



Aztec architecture, 57. 

civilization, low grade of, 51. 

festivals still celebrated, 88. 

industries, 56. 

territory, limitations of, 54. 
Aztecs, cannibalism among, 55. 

memorials of, 51. 

Banks in Mexico, igS. 

Baptist missions in Mexico, 88, 90. 

Barca, Madame Calderon de la, 

observations of, 24. 
Barrancas of Mexico, 27. 
Border population, 208. 
British capital in Mexico, 213. 
Budget, Federal, of Mexico, 188 
Buildings, wooden, absence of, in 

Mexico, 36. 
Business methods of the Mexicans, 

237- 

Calendar stone, 59. 
California, Lower, taxes in, 180. 
Cannibalism among the Aztecs, 55. 
Capital, Mexican, health of, 201. 
Catholic Church of Mexico, future 
attitude of, 219. 
hold upon the people, 82. 
responsibility for the condition 
of Mexico, 114. 



256 



INDEX. 



"Cattle-rangc " business, original 

in Mexico, 123. 
Census of Mexico, 48. 
Central America, transit routes of, 
226. 
unlicalthincss of, 226. 
Chapultepec, battle of, 71. 

monument at, 11. 
Charney, M. dc, on Aztec civiliza- 
tion, 55. 
Chimneys, absence of, 35. 
Chinese views respecting trade, 

249. 
Cholula, Pyramid of, Co. 
Church, Mexican, confiscated 
wealth of, 87. 
connection with French inva- 
sion, 78. 
nationalization of, 81. 
Coal in Mexico, 134. 

price of, 135. 
Coasts of Mexico, unhealtliiness of, 

194. 
Coffee product of Mexico, 129. 
Coinage of Mexico, 159, T96. 
Commerce, obstacles to, in Mexi- 
co, 195. 
world's, demands of, 225. 
Commercial relations of Mexico, 

189. 
Commodities, extent to which they 
can bear transportation, 125. 
Congress of Mexico, 107. 
Constitution of Mexico, 106. 
Convents, suppression of, 81. 
Corn product of Mexico, 128. 
Cortes, military exploits in Mexi- 
co, Ci. 
military forces, 61. 
picture of, 65. 



Cotton, Mexican, product and 
quality of, 131. 
limited production of, in Mexico, 

137- 
factories in Mexico, 135-137. 
Cow-boy, original home of the, 123. 
Credit, mercantile, in Mexico, 236. 

Death, lottery of, 206. 
Death-rate in Vera Cruz, 205. 
Debt, national, of Mexico, 233. 

obligations of Mexico, 27, 222, 
223. 

public, of Mexico, 222. 
Despotism of Government, 105. 
Diaz, Porfirio, President, iio. 
Drainage of the city of Mexico, 
202. 

Education in Mexico, loi. 

suppression of, under Spanish 
rule, 63. 

Elections, popular, none in Mexi- 
co, 108. 

Embassadors, Hall of, 68. 

English trade with Mexico, 193. 

Episcopal missions in Mexico, 88. 

Esperanza, railroad-slaiion of, 44. 

Estates, large Mexican, 33. 

Exports, Mexican, taxation of, 172. 

Exports and imports of Mexico, 
190. 

Factories in Mexico, 135. 

Fashions in Mexico, 146. 

Females, limitation of employ- 
ments for, 139. 

" Financier," Mexican, newspaper, 
112. 

Fires, rarity of, in Mexico, 36. 

Fiscal policy of Mexico, 154. 



INDEX. 



257 



Food, imported, liigh pi ices of, 
146. 

Foreigners, discrimination against 
land-owning, 86. 

P'orests in Mexico, 23. 

Foster, Minister Jolin W., report 
of, 17. 

Foster, Minister John W., rejoin- 
der to, by the Mexican Gov- 
ernment, ig. 

Free trade and protection in Mexi- 
co, 154. 

French trade with Mexico, 193. 

Fuel, high cost of, 135. 

Gold product of Mexico, 150. 
Government, good, in Mexico, not 

readily attainable, 214. 
Government of Mexico, 105. 
Guaymas, American trade with, 

242. 
Guerrero, city of, taxes in, 179. 

Haciendas, construction of, 31. 

Hams, analysis of duties on im- 
ports of, 168. 

Handicrafts of Mexico, 135. 

Hats, features of, in the Mexican 
dress, 26. 

" Hercules " cotton-mill, 150. 

Hidalgo, the Mexican Washing- 
ton, 67. 

Highways in Mexico, 195. 

Holy Family, flight of, repetition 
in Mexico, 24. 

Horses, acclimatization of, in Mexi- 
co, 199. 

Hospital, American, in Mexico, 
204. 

Ho!^pitals, lack of suitable, 203. 



Houses in Mexico, 22. 

of the people, 38. 
Humboldt, special privileges grant- 
ed to, 15. 

Idol, great, of the Aztecs, 58. 
Immigration to Mexico, 118. 
Indian characteristics, 141. 

races, their social position in 

Mexico, 99. 
Indians, Mexican, attachment to 

localities, 100. 
Indians, Mexican, communistic life 

of, 99. 
Indians, Mexican, improvidence 

of, 98. 
Indians, Mexican, ingenuity of, 34. 

never Christianized, 85. 
Indians of Mexico, 93. 
Industries, Mexican, taxes on, 177, 

178. 
Interoceanic transits, 225. 
Inquisition in Mexico, 63. 
Iron, absence of, in Mexican in- 
dustry, 34. 
Iron not known to the Aztecs, 

52, 53- 
Irrigation, necessity of, in Mexico, 

34- 
Irrigation, titles and rights to, 116. 
Iturbide, Emperor, portrait of, 

68. 
Hotel, 36. 
Ixlle, fiber, production of, 232. 

Jamaica, taxation in, 185. 
Juarez, Benito, character and serv- 
ices, 77. 

Kerosene-lamp, storj' of a, 232. 



:^8 



L\1)EX. 



Labor, scarcity of, in Mexico, 144. 

Lamp, kerosene, story of a, 232. 

Land, discrimination against 
American ownership of, 119. 

Land speculations on the border, 
209. 

Land-owners of Mexico, 186. 

Land-titles of Mexico, 116. 

Lands, public, of Mexico, prices 
of, 209. 

Language of Mexico, 94. 

Spanish, an obstacle to com- 
merce, 94. 

Laws, complicated system in Mexi- 
co, 175. 

Leather industry of Mexico, 13S. 

" Leperos " of Mexico, 93. 

Lerdo de Tejada, former President 
of Mexico, 10. 

Life, material and spiritual pov- 
erty of, 95. 

Living, cost of, in Mexico, 183. 

" Locomotive," effect of first ap- 
pearance, 230. 

Machinery.labor-saving, little used 

in Mexico, 133. 
Manufactures of Mexico, 133. 
restriction of, under Spanish 
rule, 64. 
Maximilian, Emperor, character 
and fate, 78, 79. 
court ceremonials of, 79. 
Mayas, civilization of, 48. 
Mechanics, obstacles to the immi- 
gration of, 170. 
Merchants, American, peculiarities 
of, 239. 
German, characteristics of, 241. 
German, in Mexico, 240. 



" Mestizos," of Mexico, 93. 
Metals, precious, abnoniial export 
of, 191. 

product of Mexico, 159. 
Methodist missions in Mexico, 88, 

90. 
Mexican Military School, Nation- 
al, 104. 
Mexico, area of, 49. 

artificial conditions to which it 
has been subject, 1 14. 

border States of, 47. 

chronic revolutions of, 69. 

Constitution of, 106. 

dryness of climate, 48. 

essential attractions of, 158. 

French invasion of, 75. 

geographical configuration of, 46. 

Government, since 1S21, 69. 

history of, 50. 

imports and exports of, 190. 

Military School, 104. 

Northern, land value in, 122. 

plateau of, 40. 

popular ignorance concerning, 

14. 39- 

population of, 48. 

poverty of the country, 39. 

recent progress of, 220. 

sanitary condition of, 203. 

small annual prcduction of, 182. 

States of, 49. 

stone age of, 52. • 

unexplored portions of, 14. 

what she buys and sells, 247. 
Middle classes, absence of, in Mex- 
ico, 186. 
Mills, cotton, in Mexico, descrip- 
tion of, 153. 
Miners, wages of, in Mexico, 141. 



INDEX. 



259 



Mines and mining in Mexico, 158. 

Mines, old Spanish, fabulous re- 
ports of, 161. 

Mining industiy of Mexico, obsta- 
cles to, 161. 
property, laws regulating, 120. 
properties, owned by Americans, 
161. 

Missionary work in Mexico, 83, go, 
252. 

Money, paper, introduction of, in 
Mexico, 199. 

Monometallism in Mexico, 196. 

Monroe doctrine, 73. 

application of, to Mexico, 210. 
practical rejection of, 252. 

Mounds, Western, counterparts of, 
in Mexico, 60. 

Museum, " National," of Mexico, 
51. 

National feelingin Mexico, strength 
of, 107. 

National portrait-gallery of Mexi- 
co, 65. 

Newspapers in Mexico, 112. 

Ores of silver, restriction on ex- 
portation, 162. 
Orizaba, Mount, 45. 

Pauper-labor argument, 140, 147. 
Picturesque scenery, 22. 
"Peonage" system, 27. 
People of Mexico, improvidence 
of, 31. 

divisions of, 92. 

indifference to progress, 187. 

occupations of, 115. 
Petroleum, market for, in Mexico, 
244. 



Plateau, Mexican, elevation of, 40. 

dryness of, 47. 
Plows, Mexican, 126. 

one handle, 126. 
Policy, a desirable American, 221. 
Popocatapetl, Mount, 41. 
Popular assemblages, unknown in 

Mexico, 105. 
Population of Mexico, 48. 
" Portango " system of taxation, 

180. 
Portraits, national, G5. 
Potatoes, scarcity of, in Mexico, 

132. 
Prescott, romance of his narrative, 

50. 
President of Mexico, term of office, 

io3. 
Press, liberty of, in Mexico, 112, 

113- 

Prices in Mexico, 146. 

Pronunciamentos, influence of rail- 
roads on, 229. 

Property, small accumulation of, 
in Mexico, 182. 

Protection and free trade in Mex- 
ico, 155. 
in the middle ages, 174. 

Protective features of the Spanish 
colonial policy, 63. 

Protestant churches of the United 
States, neglect of Mexico by, 
252, 253. 
missions in Mexico, 88, 90. 
neglect of opportunities, 252. 

Public opinion in Mexico, what 
constitutes, 108. 

Queretaro, cotton-manufacture at, 
150. 



26o 



INDEX. 



Railroad, '* Mc«cican Central," ele- 
vation of, 40. 
facilities of travel by, 21. 
" National," 233. 
system of Mexico, 233. 
" Vera Cruz and City of Mexi- 
co," 40-42. 
cost of, 43. 
scenery on, 42. 

Railroads and commerce, 23S. 
influence of, on Government, 229. 

Rainy season in Mexico, 120. 

Rancheros, good faith of, 237, 238. 

Real-estate investments in Mexi- 
co, 117. 

Receipts and expenditures of 
Mexico, 188. 

Reciprocity treaty, Mexican, 246, 
254- 

Religious toleration in Mexico, 
89, 90, 21S. 

Revenue, n.itional, principal 
sources of, 189. 

Revolutionary elements in Mexi- 
co, 209. 

Revolutions, domestic, influence of 
railroads on, 229. 

Rivers, navigable, absence of, in 
Mexico, 48. 

Roads, absence of, in Mexico, 14, 

Routes, interoceanic, 226. 

Saddles, Mexican, 138. 

Sales, taxes on, 176. 

Sanitary condition of Mexico, 203 

Santa Fe, wages and labor at, 149. 

Schools, national, 102. 

Seaports of Mexico, jioor, 195. 

Senate of Mexico, 107. 



Sewage of the city of Mexico, 200. 

Shoes and sandals, 26. 

Silver coinage, inconveniences of, 
197. 
depreciation, efl'ect of, in Mexi- 
co, 192. 

Silver monometallism in Mexico, 
196. 

Silver product of Mexico, 159. 

Slavery, practical existence of, in 
Mexico, 28, 29. 

Smuggling in Mexico, 156, 157. 
present losses by, 157. 

Social forces in Mexico, 105. 

Society, best, of Mexico, what con- 
stitutes, 215. 

Spain, laws of old, 174. 

Spanish colonial policy, 63. 

Spanish rule in Mexico, 62. 

Stamp-taxes of Mexico, 176. 

Statesmen of Mexico, high char- 
acter of. III. 

Stone age in Mexico, 52. 

Stove, cost of importing a, into 
Mexico, 166. 

Stoves, absence of, in Mexico, 35. 

Strangers, climatic influences on, 
199. 

Sugar, prices of, in Mexico, 1^0, 

245. 
product of Mexico, 129. 
prospective increase of, 130. 

Tariff, United States, restriction on 
imports of ores, 162. 

Taxation, curious experiences of, 
163, 165, 185. 

Taxation in Mexico, 163. 

in Mexico, diftkulty of reform- 
ing, 181. 



INDEX. 



261 



Taxation, illustration of effects on 
trade, 172. 

Taxation, infinitesimal system of 
Mexico, 177. 

Taxes, stamp, 176. 

Taylor, Bayard, experiences of, 16. 

Teotihuacan, Pyramids of, 60. 

Tezcoco, Lake, 200. 

Tierras Calientes, climate of, 123. 

Tobacco, Mexican, quality of, 245. 

Toltecs, civilization, 48. 

Tortillas, preparation of, 96. 

Tourists, in Mexico, health ex- 
periences of, 203, 

Trade, conditions of, 250. 
indirect of Mexico, 193. 
Mexican, with the United States, 

25- 

Transit routes, interoceanic, 226. 

Transportation of commodities, 
125. 

Travel, difficulties of, in Mexico, 
17, 20, 21. 

Treaty, Mexico-American, 247- 
250. 

Treaty, Mexico- American, rejec- 
tion of, 247. 

Tula, ruins at, 48. 



United States, atonement due 
from, to Mexico, 73. 

United States, consular representa- 
tion in Mexico, 8. 

United States, political relations 
with Mexico, 207. 

United States, trade with Mexico, 
194. 

Vera Cniz, mortality of, 205. 
Vernon, Admiral, expedition to 

Darien, 226. 
Viceroys, Spanish, portraits of, 

65. 

Wages in Mexico, 28, 29, 140, 

141. 
lowest in North America, 149. 
Wagons, Mexican, 126. 
Water, scarcity of, in Mexico, 120, 

121. 
Wheat product of Mexico, 128. 
Wine production of Mexico, 64. 
Women, Mexican, restrictions on 

the labor of, 139. 

Yucatan, agriculture in, 124. 
laborers of, 144. 



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MANUAL OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. Dy 

VV. C. Taylor, LL. U.. M. R. A. S. Kcviscd by C. 8. Uenuv, D. D. 

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MoDXRX History. — Containinir the Rise and Progress of the Principal 

fluropean Nations, their Politic.il History, and the Changes in their 

Social Condition; with a History of the Colonies tounded by 

Europeans. 

Dryness is generally characteristic of condensed historical outlines ; in the 
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bring out in clear light the pecidiarities of individual or national character. 

The American edition has been revised thronchout by Dr. Henry, and en- 
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HISTORY OF THE JEWS FROM 420 B. C. E. TO THE 
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HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By A L. Kceppe.v. 
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■• The author's purpose was to present an accurate description of the world 
during the different periods from tlic ultimate division of the Koman Kmpire, 
down to the conquest of Constantinople in the Kast, and the discovery of Amer- 
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political institutions and social life. Mr. Bagehot is not so much a partisan or an 
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those which conseienco reveals to be such." — Lir. C. K. Adams's Manual of 
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SWIFT, FLOOD, GRATTAN, 0»CONNELL. liy Will. 

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national spirit of Ireland was not limited by the local questions whose diecuesion 
constituted their fame."— ,^V(i' i'ork Etenihg Post. 

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12mo, paper cover. Price, 50 cents; half bound, 75 cents. 
A FASCINATING SPANISH ROMANCE. 



Pepita Ximenez, 

A NOVEL. 

From the Spanish of JUAN VALE R A. 

With an Introduction by the author written specially for this edition. 



" After reading ' Pepita Ximenez,' . . . I fell to wondering how it happened 
that none of our native authors had produced a novel so simple, so sagacious, 
so subtile, and so captivating. ... A passionate love-story, beautifully con- 
ceived and composed." — Julian Hawthorne, in the World. 

12mo, paper cover. Price, 50 cents; half bound, 75 cents. 
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 6 Bond Street, New York. 



CONDUCTED BY E. L. & W. J. YOUMANS 


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for 1887 will continue, 
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